Well, there’s some good news for once. Of course, it’ll cost a bloody fortune until it goes generic in thirty years…
Which is sort of a blessing in disguise. It’ll be too expensive to put in cattle feed, and maybe by then we’ll have some regulation in place to make sure it never does.
I love good news, but
Bacteria appear to have a particularly difficult time developing resistance to the drug, potentially overcoming a major problem with existing antibiotics.
Sounds a little fanciful. I can believe it’s harder to become resistant to, but not that the underlying problem has been overcome.
Anyway, thank goodness for randomly finding things in the ground.
Bacteria appear to have a particularly difficult time developing resistance to the drug, …
That just means that it will take a little longer for the bacteria to develop resistance anyway.
the worst part about that is it’s not even man made, they found it in dirt, but will still get patent protections to prevent generic versions, wtf.
Your move MRSA.
6 months later… Aw crap.
Great. There goes our dirt.
To be fair, a lot of work went into discovering the compound and figuring out a way to culture the bacteria in an artificial environment.
“QUICK, lets develop it so that we can inject our cows and pigs with it and keep them in horrible conditions and never have to change!” - Factory farm owners
Well, I’ll hold my final judgement until we see how much it actually costs, but a new anti-biotic thing is one place I probably won’t complain too much about the patent system. The patent system on drugs is terribly broken because it encourages companies to recycle existing drugs with minor tweaks rather than look for genuinely new drugs. The profit motive in medicine almost means that companies much prefer to make maintenance drugs instead of drugs that actually cure illnesses. If someone gets a new anti-biotic to market that deals with at least some of our current anti-biotic resistance issues, then I don’t mind them raking in some cash. After all, it may well be that they actually invested in saving people’s lives rather than in gaming the patent system.
This new substance … it was manufactured by a microbe, yes?
Therefore, isn’t it reasonable to assume, that microbe can survive its own toxin?
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And if that microbe can survive it, cannot others, perhaps?
Still, it’s nice to hear that they have a new class of antibiotics to add to the 'cillins and the 'mycins and the 'sporins.
Many antibiotics essentially come from dirt. Dirt microbes are engaged in constant chemical warfare and, yes, are resistant to their own – and to many other microbes’ – toxins. The main factor in determining cost will probably be how hard it is to grow the new bug in fermenters to produce the drug.
“But it does seem to have the minor side-effect of reanimating dead bodies - though leaving the subjects brain dead.”
This treats Staph and TB? Several thumbs way up.
The big news will probably turn out to be their R&D process.
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