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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Official Messages
Forum: We're Moving to Krembil Research Institute!
Thread: Ethics Concern - HealthCare Spending Effects |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 16
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zxcvbob
Cruncher United States Joined: Jan 12, 2006 Post Count: 35 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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tovli - the University Health Network, the parent of Krembil Institute, is a registered non-profit. They are not a private pharmaceutical company. They are not a drug maker, who will use WCG as a free tool to research extraordinarily expensive drugs. The organization runs several major hospitals in Toronto - all of which are under Canada's medicare system, and are renouned for their research and treatments. UHN and/or the Krembil Institute, one of UHN's research institutes, has been involved in the Grid since 2007 with Help Conquer Cancer and Mapping Cancer Markers. If there was anyone you could trust with securing the grid's future, Krembil and UHN are excellent choices. I understand, under US' healthcare system, the idea of a healthcare organization could raise alarm. That is not the case here. Krembil and UHN are not a shack up in the middle of nowhere, nor are they a corporate stooge who will turn WCG into a project of greed - they are a well known, world renowned organization filled to the brim with scientists, researchers and doctors - among Canada's best. If a direct comment from Dr. Jurisica, the new leader of WCG, committing to continuing open data and open science doesn't alleviate your concern, I'm lost as to what will. This looks like as good a place to post this as any; it's not worthy of a new thread. I saw "Krembil" and read it as "Kendryl" (which is really spelled Kyndryl) The timing of the switch coinciding with IBM's spin-off of Kyndryl is I think what confused me, then the claim of Krembil being a leading science and clinical research company made no sense unless that claim was based solely on them now running WCG. Glad I was wrong.  |
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Mike.Gibson
Ace Cruncher England Joined: Aug 23, 2007 Post Count: 12594 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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An example of co-operation between a research institute and a pharmaceutical company is the Oxford University/AstraZenica Covid vaccine. That was developed by Oxford University funded by UK Government and produced by AstraZenica for sale at cost only - one tenth of the cost of the Pfizer vaccine. And donations were made to 3rd world countries.
Mike |
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Falconet
Master Cruncher Portugal Joined: Mar 9, 2009 Post Count: 3315 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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zxcvbob, or Kremlin :D
----------------------------------------Good example, Mike.  - AMD Ryzen 5 1600AF 6C/12T 3.2 GHz - 85W - AMD Ryzen 5 2500U 4C/8T 2.0 GHz - 28W - AMD Ryzen 7 7730U 8C/16T 3.0 GHz |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
A criticism of the corporate pharmaceutical industry is that they research, create, and patent a new chemical, and then market an expensive drug that no one may recreate, since it's been patented. They do that because clinical trials are hugely expensive (around 1-2 billion dollars). And they are more expensive every passing year. I used to not crunch for research that would end generating a patented drug. Now I have no problem with that. I understand that, in the current medical regulation framework, patents are the only way companies can get a return on investment for their medical research. With no patents you would not have any new drug. Also, most of IBM products are patented or copyrighted, while KRI is a non-profit research institution, so I don't quite understand why are you complaining about patents just now. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I think that's a good point. It is very likely that the original molecule would be modified by any development process in order to improve molecule stability once subject to the metabolism of the human body (in the liver, mostly, I guess), efficacy, etc. The original molecule and the final molecule would have a different chemical composition. Yep. Unless it's a repurposed drug, the initial molecule (called a lead) will be heavily modified to improve efficacy, safety, etc. until it becomes a drug candidate that can enter human trials. This usually involves a long (and costly) process of trial and error in mice and cell cultures. |
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