I’m not sure whether developing new antibiotics is really a sustainable approach. Unless we manage use of antibiotics, maybe we just end up creating more and more antibiotic resistant bacteria. My bet is always on life/evolution.
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How’s that any different for much of what’s been happening up until now?
The evolutionary forces haven’t disappeared though we’re trying to remove ourselves from them as much as possible. But in many fields that can only work for a limited time.
With obvious consequences: Postponed isn’t canceled, and in very many cases closing one door opens another.
The difference between the European and North American approach is fascinating: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/antibiotic-market. Big Pharma in the USA has become a self sustaining organism.
I would make a difference between DISEASES and CONDITIONS. A lot of what they call ‘rare diseases’ are due to genetic abnormalities . As such, no diseases, but conditions that the patient suffers from birth, and are incompatible with normal lifespans, or create lifelong hardships for the individual or the community around him/her (and hence, cost to the government) from birth, or when they are triggered; these drugs are rarely curative, but allow the individual to maintain a suitable QoL.
The business model with rare diseases is sustainable thanks to 3 different ways the financial, R&D & Market access architecture is set up, and is of no interest to the original question
To answer the question, ‘rare diseases’ (& orphan drugs) is already, as they say in the fashion industry, “soooo passé” . Everything that they have been learning on the last 15 years of this type of research (and now pulling everything together with AI), is now aiming to what they call ‘personalized medicine’. Treatments that, like these last vaccine for Melanoma, will ‘cure’ also other more normal conditions (& diseases), like HBP, cholesterol, alzhaimer and the alikes.
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