Moskau50 t1_j2cgtu6 wrote on December 31, 2022 at 5:31 AM

Reply to comment by mrPandabot35 in ELI5 Why aren't we curing more degenerative diseases with stem cell research? by KaishiXYZ

>healthy people is not good for business in the pharmaceutical world. If you use something that’s too effective you won’t need to buy more of the less effective stuff.

Speaking cynically, "healthy" people don't exist. The longer someone lives the more illnesses and medical issues they will have. A long-lived person is a long-term patient; being the person/company to cure a degenerative/"incurable" disease is a huge windfall in both money (at that point, you can name your price) and prestige. No company would sit on that information.

Speaking more rationally, it's not like curing these diseases would be a simple measure anyway. Even treating "normal" diseases is a massive effort. The amount of raw effort, resources, money, and capital investment needed to produce normal treatments isn't something to be casually dismissed. Pharma companies would be happy to "retire" a medication in exchange for a huge windfall payment from the cures in order to make room for other medications/processes that are in the pipeline.

mrPandabot35 t1_j2chwar wrote on December 31, 2022 at 5:42 AM

Of course, people will eventually become I’ll with something, but what I’m thinking is that things like Crohn’s or some kind of organ/nerve damage could be better handled potentially decreasing the number of hospital visits, medication needs, and the domino effect that follows. Time lost from those visits decreasing quality of life. Meds taking their toll on the liver. Just because we can’t “fix” everything, we should do more than treat symptoms.

Moskau50 t1_j2cj5b8 wrote on December 31, 2022 at 5:54 AM

If you have an idea for how to cure those diseases, I'm sure there are plenty of companies that would love to hear it.

Just saying "we should focus on this" isn't useful; current production capacity is already pretty fully utilized for current standard-of-care treatments or clinical next-generation treatments. If a cure is found, then sure, there are companies that would be willing to sideline some of their current treatments in order to make this cure. But the data supporting it needs to be good, because otherwise, you're depriving other people of their current treatments.