Pharmaceutical companies are interested in research only when it looks likely it will produce a profit. This research is some years away from that at this stage. Not only that, the Swedish research team placed much of their research in to the public domain, in order to help others with their research.
This act of altruism has meant that the Swedish team is unable to patent their research. This, in turn, means that pharmaceutical companies cannot guarantee that they alone will own the research at this stage and therefore profit from it.
Only when it has been trialled and developed further, can a new set of patents be applied – giving a drugs company sole ownership of the product, and a guaranteed profit.
The Swedish team has received grants from Swedish government funding and the Swedish Cancer Society (equivalent to Cancer Research UK). The grants cover the research to develop viruses for therapy but they are not big enough to run clinical trials with an advanced medicinal product where special rules apply (viruses falls under this category in Europe).
On behalf of all Australian neuroendocrine cancer sufferers we applaud the efforts of Alexander Masters and the wonderful initiative of iCancer. This ‘viral’ campaign has raised awareness of the plight of our patients and I hope will stimulate interest in research not only into this project but myriad others, that may one day translate into better therapies or cure for this maligned condition.
Well done.
Dr John Leyden
PS Everyone needs a friend like Alexander.