@jsquared91 thank you for the link! Reducing the cost of treating HCV over a 20 year period by 75% is quite impressive. I'll have to add that blog to my rss feed. I've gained a lot of interest in clinical research through my current position and have been opened up to a completely new way of understanding drug development.
@ridethecliche you are correct in saying that I meant the drug my company is trialing isn't cost prohibitive. I'm not sure how familiar you are with "re-purposing" drugs but that's what we are doing with our drug currently. So the drug has already been approved by the FDA for a few specific uses and approved for compassionate off-label use. We are working to prove efficacy for a different therapeutic use.
http://www.ncats.nih.gov/research/r...urpose/therapeutic-uses/therapeutic-uses.html gives an overview of the idea.
I understand and agree with your point about companies with shareholders. Our company is relatively small and not publicly traded. This particular trial is funded through a grant. That being said, I know the end point is making money. There are, however, hundreds and thousands of ways to make money though. Some ways happen to help people in some fashion while other ways don't.
As for trials in poorer countries, I'm against. Clean clinical data is hard enough to obtain in more economically developed countries. I can't imagine trying to conduct a trial in underdeveloped countries for logistical reasons in addition to the ethical dilemma.[/user]
