[HN Gopher] I'm making drugs for cats
___________________________________________________________________
I'm making drugs for cats
Author : klevertree
Score : 122 points
Date : 2022-06-16 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (trevorklee.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (trevorklee.substack.com)
| h2odragon wrote:
| Gee whiz this is a great chemical, let's find something it's good
| for and perhaps we'll be able to make money on it someday...
|
| Seems like a really long diversion from the original goals,
| doesn't it? "People have problem A and i want to test solution X
| for effectiveness" was the first principle, right? Now it sounds
| a lot like "we bought tons of this crap now we've gotta push it
| _somehow_ "
| awillen wrote:
| That's the real world for you. Sometimes companies end up
| seeing success after long diversions from real goals, because
| the world throws obstacles at them that require them to adapt.
|
| Seems like the alternative here is to do nothing, so finding a
| productive but realistic path forward is a better alternative.
| I think it's clearly wrong to call running studies in animals
| "pushing it" on anyone.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Yea, isn't that how Viagra came about - "Well it doesn't the
| blood vessels quite like we wanted, but .... well it does
| this!"
| vrc wrote:
| And Rogaine. It was also created to treat High BP as a
| powerful vasodilator. Turns out it made you hairy too.
| Maybe we should spend all of our R&D pursuing High BP --
| who knows what other ailments we'll cure!
| therein wrote:
| I mentioned this before in HN, will mention again. There
| is definitely something about vasodilation and hair
| growth/mobility, especially when it comes to in-grown
| facial hair.
|
| If you have in-grown hairs, take Viagra once and they'll
| start coming out in a few hours on their own or with
| minimal mechanical force. The effect continues for a day
| or two so I am sure even the secondary metabolites might
| be somewhat active in inducing this effect.
| klevertree wrote:
| Trying to cure a disease that gives cats such bad mouth sores
| that they sometimes can't even drink water isn't exactly
| "pushing crap".
|
| We're trying to make it to profitability so we can get to the
| point where we can test the solution in humans who have
| neurodegeneration. When you're dealing with incredibly complex
| regulatory environments and millions of dollars in development
| costs, it's not always easy to make it from point A to point B.
| That's the point of this post.
| nimbius wrote:
| god this article sounds like a writing prompt.
|
| "im making drugs for cats!" I shreik in my underwear as the FBI
| raids my derelict RV full of cat clozapine and TV dinner trays.
|
| "im making drugs for cats" I calmly explain as i wheel a
| teetering trolly full of drain cleaner and paint thinner toward
| my car.
|
| "im making drugs...for cats?" I shake my head as the prospect of
| tenure track seems to fade away.
| GordonS wrote:
| > I linked up with an excellent corporate attorney and patent
| attorney, both of whom agreed to let me use their services on a
| pay later basis.
|
| I'm curious about this "pay later" arrangement - does it simply
| mean they'll invoice you on 30 day terms, or something else?
| klevertree wrote:
| The corporate attorney agreed not to require me to pay any of
| their invoices until I closed a seed round, while the patent
| attorney let me pay their invoices a full year after I received
| them. These sorts of arrangements are common with attorneys who
| work with startups.
| codewiz wrote:
| If this was published on Medium, I would have highlighted this
| paragraph: "On the human side, the FDA mostly considers their
| responsibility to be to stop unsafe or ineffective drugs from
| entering the marketplace, and believes that allowing safe and
| effective drugs to enter the marketplace is a secondary goal."
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| That makes perfect sense if you know the history of the FDA!
|
| PBS has a great documentary on it.
| https://www.pbs.org/video/dr-harvey-wiley-father-pure-food-s...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Good. They're the only thing standing between the public and
| people who would run mass experiments daily for money.
| [deleted]
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes, they have to do this. The cost of a few bad drug approvals
| that cause large-scale loss of confidence in the pharma
| industry would be devastating- including consequential effects
| on good medications.
| kansface wrote:
| > Yes, they have to do this.
|
| We can imagine lots of alternatives to what the FDA currently
| does - a partial approval pipeline immediately comes to mind
| in which the degree to which a drug is approved is
| commensurate to our confidence in the safety/efficacy of the
| drug. A different system could have different levels of
| approval on efficacy and safety. A different system could
| attempt to maximize lives saved (or utility years) and would
| look very different yet.
| pr0zac wrote:
| There are a lot of different approaches that could be taken
| that would definitely be more effective in the short term
| and I too wish we could take the most effective and logical
| approach. The problem is people are not always logical,
| especially on a large scale.
|
| A proposal like you mentioned puts a lot of trust in the
| general public to be capable of making informed decisions
| based on detailed approval levels and risk profiles and not
| react to negative outcomes or side effects by blaming the
| FDA, pharmaceutical science, or the medical field.
|
| It feels like putting that kind of complication into
| something as important and life affecting as
| pharmaceuticals is just asking for trouble when we live in
| a world where the grades for maple syrup needed to be
| simplified and large numbers of people think the President
| has direct control of gas prices.
|
| Especially in the age of social media, it only takes a
| small increase in the number of people reacting illogically
| and lashing out to snowball, create loud counter
| narratives, and threaten the view of the FDA as a trusted
| authority and its ability to provide strong oversight. The
| result being increasing numbers of people harmed because
| they chose to avoid care or seek out sham alternative
| treatments.
|
| We can already see these issues cropping up with regard to
| things like vaccines where factors like COVID vaccines
| being rolled out under early approval (an unfortunately
| necessary special case) has hurt public perception of the
| FDA.
|
| The unhappy fact is that any approach that does not take
| into account the need to protect people from themselves,
| make efforts to minimize bad PR, and ensure the FDA appears
| as completely as possible to never make mistakes will
| result in an erosion of trust and even worse outcomes in
| the long term.
| hycaria wrote:
| Yep. Not the same in most of EU where proof of efficiency is
| most often required. Which also explains why some people need
| to go to the US for treatment
| zerocrates wrote:
| There's an enormous amount of literature and commentary out
| there about the tendency for federal regulators in general, and
| the FDA especially, to minimize "Type I" error (approving drugs
| that are unsafe/ineffective) with the negative consequence of
| making more "Type II" errors (not approving drugs that are safe
| and effective).
| carride wrote:
| _Easier regulatory environments. Not only do you not need to talk
| to the FDA before testing your drug in animals, cats are way less
| likely to sue you if they get sick from your drug. Of course,
| we'd still do our best to make sure they didn't, but it's less
| likely to sink the entire company if they do._
| krageon wrote:
| I thought this is paraphrased, but this is lifted straight from
| the article. This is so incredibly wrong I simply couldn't get
| past this statement.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I think this company is not understanding the role that
| animals have in millennial households.
| samatman wrote:
| The company which is betting the farm on cat owners
| spending money to treat their suffering cats doesn't know
| their market?
|
| On the basis of what evidence.
| krsw wrote:
| How we got to our current state of medicine is horrifying,
| but the alternative is more grim.
|
| There is no clean arrival for good, safe, effective medicine.
| A little gallows humor isn't hurting anyone.
| schnitzelstoat wrote:
| Out of context, it sounds awful.
|
| But having read the whole article, he doesn't seem like a
| monster at all. If it works as planned it'll really help some
| cats.
| krageon wrote:
| Sanzig wrote:
| I don't want to sound callous, but... they're cats. Not
| humans. How do you think all the medicines at your vet's
| office were originally tested?
|
| Animal models are used in biomedical research all the
| time, and yet they account for a tiny fraction of the
| animals we kill for arguably less useful purposes (meat
| production). Provided steps are taken to minimize any
| unnecessary suffering (which should be relatively minimal
| in a drug trial), I find conducting research on animal
| models far more justifiable than even just eating meat -
| there's an alternative to the latter (vegetarianism),
| there aren't good alternatives to the former.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| This is the entire ethical basis of animal testing,
| except in this case, they're at risk of actually helping
| the animals they're testing.
|
| Compare that to e.g. malaria trials where they buy mice,
| infect them with malaria, and then see if the malaria
| responds.
|
| I'm a vegetarian because once I made the leap that
| animals probably have an internal experience, torturing
| and slaughtering them so my mouth can feel a certain way
| strikes me as not personally justifiable. How much worse
| is that? Should I go around calling everyone a monster?
| Hardly.
|
| Animal testing at least has some meaningful rationale,
| and testing treatments for diseases animals actually have
| seems solidly in the realm of ethically justifiable
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Is it? It seems like it's just acknowledging a objectively
| true reality. In the US getting sued for failed human medical
| intervention is common and costly. Courts (and juries I'm
| sure) don't look on animal lives with the same value as they
| do human lives. _You_ might have a different value system,
| but the article isn 't talking about your moral system, it's
| talking about objective reality.
| jessermeyer wrote:
| I think the person you're replying to is using the term
| 'wrong' morally.
| samhw wrote:
| But, like they said, it's talking about the legal reality
| and not the moral reality. I find it hard to see how that
| could be either factually or morally wrong.
| carride wrote:
| Correct, that comment was italicized to show that it was
| lifted straight from the article
| hinkley wrote:
| And that's how our dog died in 25 days from a painkiller that
| the protocol is to check for liver function after 30 days...
|
| I suppose this sentence is meant to be a little tongue in
| cheek, but a few of us at least do not find it funny.
| mlyle wrote:
| I can see why you found that upsetting.
|
| Still: our society (rationally) does not devote the same
| resources to drug development for animals as it does for
| humans. And even protocols, dosing regimens, etc, for humans
| are not perfect. And even when the ideal protocol is chosen,
| some people _still_ have a bad outcome by being an outlier.
|
| Medicine is very imperfect; veterinary medicine is worse.
| klevertree wrote:
| Unfortunately, the reality of trying to cure animals is that
| sometimes you accidentally hurt animals. That's also the
| reality of trying to cure humans.
|
| This is the exact same issue vets face when they perform
| surgery on your cat, and it's the exact same issue that
| surgeons face when they perform surgery on you. The difference
| is that vets don't have to pay tons of money for malpractice
| insurance in case they get sued by the owner, which is one of
| the big reasons why veterinary surgery is so much cheaper (i.e.
| affordable to ordinary people) than human surgery.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >veterinary surgery is so much cheaper (i.e. affordable to
| ordinary people) than human surgery....
|
| ..."in the USA". At a guess, I'd say it's the complete
| opposite in Europe with it's pesky human healthcare systems.
| pjerem wrote:
| To be fair, human surgery also costs a lot in Europe. It's
| just not paid by the patient. It's not healthcare in itself
| that is free but health insurance.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I've actually paid less for a private X-ray (in the UK)
| than it cost for my cat at the vet. Vetinary drugs are
| also often more expensive than their human equivalents.
|
| I suspect scale may be a factor here.
| IMTDb wrote:
| It also costs less.
|
| How many European doctors make more than $500k / year ?
| The _average_ orthopedic makes roughly that
| (https://www.kaptest.com/study/mcat/doctor-salaries-by-
| specia...)
| EUROCARE wrote:
| And that's a huge problem. All our doctors (Eastern EU
| here) are leaving for UK, US, or richer western EU
| countries. To resolve that, we have a law that requires
| newly graduate doctors to stay and work here for a long
| time (10 years here IIRC), which is rightly seen as a
| serious issue wrt. their personal freedom. That pushes
| people away from pursuing medical degrees.
|
| It's cheaper, but that has its price too.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| > All our doctors (Eastern EU here) are leaving for UK,
| US, or richer western EU countries
|
| To be fair. That's true of educated people in general,
| not just doctors.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| I can't fully agree. I think the situation is much better
| than it used to be and is improving, for example IT
| workers are not universally leaving anymore, a lot of
| them now stay and there are many foreign people coming
| here! There is now an exciting startup sector too, and
| the international corporations are finally building IT
| hubs here. But it keeps getting worse in the medical
| sector because of that law and because it's not paid well
| enough given the long hours and stress.
|
| Nowadays, older doctors (those who have served their 10
| years) are moving from insurance-based to cash-based
| treatment because they demand much more than the "pricing
| tables" dictate - so there's a lot of doctors around you,
| but you can't go to them because the "public" insurance
| can be used only where they accept it, they never give
| you cash. The prices are very similar to US hospital
| quotes - in absolutes, not PPP. Meanwhile, we still have
| the "public" healthcare providers (these are
| corporations, but usually wholly or partially owned by
| political entities), but the quality is getting worse,
| they are unable to keep it stable, much less improve -
| not surprising since they rely on essentially forced
| labor.
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| Damn I thought he'd be working on like, cat Ecstasy or something.
| jyounker wrote:
| That's called 'catnip' :)
| jseutter wrote:
| Getting Ecstasy to market involves fewer regulatory hurdles
| than even drugs for animals. It just so happens to be illegal
| in most countries.
|
| I thought he'd be doing "this drug is for cats" _wink_ _wink_
| and then people use it, but in retrospect a judge would see
| right through that.
|
| I wonder if it would be significantly cheaper to go through
| regulatory approvals for a drug in another country, to the
| point where it would be worthwhile to relocate the company?
| potatosalad1 wrote:
| My cat got bartonella which caused this condition and had to have
| all his teeth removed. Prior to the surgery he was in absolute
| misery, and the only treatment was steroids that did little and
| aren't meant for longtime use. The surgery was several thousand
| dollars, out of reach for a lot of families. An effective
| treatment for this condition would be great!
| treme wrote:
| curious, how is your cat doing post-surgery? I imagine it
| required a significant dietary change
| hycaria wrote:
| US I imagine ? It's a few hundreds here.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" The surgery was several thousand dollars, out of reach for a
| lot of families."_
|
| Wouldn't pet health insurance cover it?
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Good luck Mr Escopurr
| phillc73 wrote:
| Just from the headline I thought something similar - developing
| something around catnip or valerian, which is kind of an
| interesting idea but probably already done.
| lgvln wrote:
| I have a quasi-thought experiment for fellow HN readers.
|
| If you found out one of the stray cats at unofficial "cat
| shelter" tested positive for FeLV and the person who runs the
| "cat shelter" seems oblivious to it, would you consider unethical
| to let the person continue run it? The FeLV virus is likely to
| spread among all the cats and result in a short life of suffering
| and illness.
| kixiQu wrote:
| If you can't get them to vaccinate the other cats, then yes
| danw1979 wrote:
| So is this a variation on the trolley problem or something ?
|
| How many cats are we talking about ?
| lgvln wrote:
| Not really. I guess it's about disruption of the person's
| lifestyle and he/her liking for cats vs the actual welfare of
| the cats - how having good intentions alone is often
| insufficient. I would put the current number of cats at 10,
| plus other future cats.
| dghughes wrote:
| @OP you should reach out to my local University and its Atlantic
| Veterinary College (AVC) here in PEI, Canada.
|
| https://www.upei.ca/avc/research
| klevertree wrote:
| Do you have any connections there, by any chance? Always
| looking to talk to more vets.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| My beloved calico who passed away near the beginning of the
| pandemic suffered from stomatitis. I opted for full dental
| extraction after pharmaceutical intervention proved ineffective.
| She eventually passed away from an aggressive mouth cancer, which
| is not uncommon in cats with stomatitis.
|
| I loved that cat, she got me through grad school, and losing her
| was miserable. My gratitude to anyone working on stomatitis
| treatments.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| aggressive mouth cancer? my calico ten years ago succumbed to a
| horrible oral bone cancer's complications. to hell with cancer,
| and it's kinda retarded (literal meaning of the word) how
| slowly progress is made.
| gkop wrote:
| Huh? Retarded just means "slow" literally. So, if I get your
| meaning, it's absolutely not "kinda" retarded, it's
| _depressingly /horribly/saddeningly/hopelessly_ retarded. And
| I do not recommend putting "kinda" together with "retarded"
| if you want to be received positively.
|
| (I'm sorry for what you and your calico endured. F cancer)
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| good catch (seriously) of the inadvertent cliche
| reinforcing "kinda". (yeah eff cancer)
| gnulinux wrote:
| I mean, it depends on the accent, but some people use
| "kinda" as a filler word without any strong meaning. I
| didn't perceive "kinda" to qualify "slow" in that sentence
| to imply it's "a little slow", given the sentence was
| written to assert that progress is slow.
| gkop wrote:
| Then just say "kinda slow". Easy. If you want to use a
| charged word, it's on you to make your intention easily
| understood. If that's too much for you, then just use a
| safe and well-understood word.
| klevertree wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear about your calico. Stomatitis is really a
| terrible disease.
| Barrera wrote:
| > I felt good! The next step was in sight: a test of the drug in
| humans, to see if we actually saw the blood levels of
| cyclosporine that I expected we would. We had contracted with a
| CRO in the Netherlands and were raising the $1+ million needed to
| actually carry out the test when - pop! - the biotech markets
| imploded. Suddenly, investors literally stopped returning my (and
| everyone else's) emails.
|
| That sounds like a Phase 1 trial for safety in human volunteers.
| If the plan was to sell the IP to or partner with a major Pharma,
| maybe this could work. But the IP situation may not be that
| clear-cut with a drug repurposing, especially given this:
|
| > This is still a tall order for a guy whose background was,
| again, science blogger. But things went surprisingly ok, all
| things considered. I linked up with an excellent corporate
| attorney and patent attorney, both of whom agreed to let me use
| their services on a pay later basis. ...
|
| You really can't do this on the cheap.
|
| People in tech (or even science broadly) trying to get into the
| drug industry frankly have no clue about what it actually takes
| to get a drug approved for humans in the US. Hundreds of millions
| are table stakes. The bar is higher than just about any other
| industry for new product introduction, even for a repurposing.
|
| Even if the bear market had stayed in hibernation for another
| year or two, the fundamental problem is that human drug approval
| is a massive resource drain that requires very deep pockets and
| an ironclad IP position.
|
| Failure (after massive expenditure) should be considered the base
| case.
| savingsPossible wrote:
| So maybe people should try different markets?
|
| What would be a clever approach to make a drug viable/revenue
| creating?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Just wanted to leave a plea for someone, anyone, to please start
| working on FeLV and FIV vaccines. Cats normally live 16 years.
| FeLV/FIV takes them at age 2 or 3. It happened to both of mine.
|
| Not only is it common, but it's often assumed that it'll happen.
| It seems almost lucky when cats _don 't_ get it.
|
| If an epidemic like that were affecting humans, a trillion
| dollars would be spent to fight it. But since it's cats, we just
| stay silent.
|
| I wish there were more commercial incentive. I don't know how
| there would be, but I hope one day there will be.
| lgvln wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear both your cats passed away at age 2-3. Can I
| ask whether the cats were infected with FeLV or FIV? FIV cats
| can often live a relatively long life (~10 years) if kept
| indoors. Whereas the median lifespan for a FeLV positive cat is
| 3 years from the date of diagnosis.
| samatman wrote:
| Not to detract from your point, but HIV is exactly that disease
| and a lot of money has been spent to treat it with considerable
| success.
|
| Which is to say you're correct but it's not a hypothetical.
| soco wrote:
| Lost two little friends because of that ;(
| hycaria wrote:
| FeLV has a vaccine. Also I guess it's regional, here not that
| many cases. Also have personally seen multiple cats live well
| past 10 with FIV, with no treatment as they are none. 2-3 years
| seems super short from what I've seen so I wouldn't blame FIV
| only. (I am an European vet)
| saiya-jin wrote:
| > If an epidemic like that were affecting humans, a trillion
| dollars would be spent to fight it.
|
| Only if it affected rich western countries. Poor fuckers of all
| ages from around equator are decimated daily and comparatively
| very little was done and its not great even now. Very easy and
| cheap to minimize exposure (ie mosquito nets), and completely
| reachable to eradicate for for maybe 70-80% of affected
| population. But I guess dying african/asian kid half around the
| world doesn't stir enough emotions these days.
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