Antabuse (disulfiram) as a pilot case of nonprofit drug.

摘要

Recently, Keiser et al.1 published a work on predicting new molecular targets for known drugs which has a deep social context. Generic drugs could save today's health care systems and protect them from rising costs. This is the view of the European Commission, as reported in The Economist ("Patently absurd," Dec 4, 2008). People ask why expensive, branded drugs should be financed by public resources. The problem is even more acute in the third world.One way to lower the price of the drugs is, to invent a new use for old drugs.2'3 Nonetheless, if the old drug is patented, it would be relatively expensive. The more promising approach, it seems to me, is for governments or charities to finance phase II/III clinical trials for generic drugs and to allow the companies focused on generic drugs to use the clinical data obtained to enable them to sell the drug cheaply for a new use around the world.