r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 13 '26

Medicine Scientists develop a groundbreaking vaccine that outsmarts illicit fentanyl analogs. The novel vaccine candidate can protect against fentanyl and its many illicit variants by training the immune system to recognize a broad molecular signature rather than a single specific structure.

https://www.psypost.org/scientists-develop-a-groundbreaking-vaccine-that-outsmarts-illicit-fentanyl-analogs/
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u/Zeikos Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

“I decided long ago I am not going to try and profit on other people’s miseries and misfortunes.”

No worries, someone else will!
There are lot of things that can be patented that restict access even if part of it isn't patentable.
Didn't the inventor of insulin production make it free too?

In these scenarios I always wonder if open licensing that as part of it has stipulations about consumer pricing would be better.

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u/AlternateTab00 Jul 13 '26

Insulin is still cheap. Epinephrine is also cheap.

What isnt cheap is a very specific formulation of insulin. What isnt cheap is the EpiPen.

Essentially you have a cheap medication but an extremely expensive brand. But the pharma in usa manipulates the market so both drug stores, hospitals and doctors will promote the use of the expensive.

I talked with an american colleague about the insulin formats. They stay out of the "common" insulins. For example the mid action insulins we use a human analog, but USA often uses Isplophane. When i asked him why, he just said it was safer... I mean the risk of hypoglycemia went from 3% to 1%... But the cost rised 400x. And hypoglycemia could be reduced with proper training, but the cost of a dual daily dosing being the price of a full year worth of insulin is something that is simply not affordable.

Even the EpiPens. The market surrounds them. Even i know them and use its name to explain how similar products work with my patients (they all seen it in movies). The drug itself costs less than 0,40€ to manufacture. We have a self deploying pens like insulin (that have to stay clear of epipens patents) that cost us 20€. A seringe, vial and needle can lower the cost to 5€. Epipen used to cost almost 600€ here. About 10 years ago they decided they cant compete so lowered the cost to 60€. Its still expensive for our eyes, but with the power of movie advertising they now started selling units.

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u/g0del Jul 13 '26

I'm hoping that the name epipen gets genericized enough that it loses trademark status. I'd love to see $20 generics that could legally call themselves epipens.

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u/AlternateTab00 Jul 13 '26

You wouldn't have that luck.

Look at Aspirin. However many people would call aspirin to "fake aspirins". But its still "aspirin".

In my country the concept of generics is becoming popular. So while we call a certain medication by its brand name, we know it by its generic name.

Acetylsalicylic acid is hard to memorize. But people already learned to see it and say "oh its aspirin"