Give And Ye Shall Not Receive

If you, like others, have always had a sneaking suspicion that Cancer Research UK is effectively an R&D resource for the pharmaceutical industry (the signs aren't too well hidden), Judith Potts at the Telegraph only appears to lend creedence to the idea.

Some of these drugs will have been developed by the Clinical Development Partnerships. This section of Cancer Research UK takes anti-cancer drugs, which pharmaceutical companies have “deprioritised” - that is, “given up on” - and puts them through trials. If a drug proves to be successful, the pharmaceutical company retains the option to take the drug back and develop it for patients – but Cancer Research UK does not lose out because it would, then, receive a share of the revenue. Pharmaceutical companies sometimes abandon work on anti cancer drugs because of the time factor and the cost involved - it can take up to 10 years and hundreds of millions of pounds before these drugs arrive on the pharmacy shelf. This way, new medicines can be developed for use, particularly, with the more rare cancers.

Now, I've always wondered - even when they were called the Imperial Research Fund - what would happen if cancer charities were to find a cure for cancer.

Considering their donations come from the public, would they donate the cure to the NHS in recognition of where the funding originated? You know, give the country's money back to the people who provided it. Or would it be handed over to the pharma industry so that they can then charge the NHS (and thereby, us) for a profitable eternity?

Well, I have to say that this doesn't look too encouraging.

CRUK will take up a project that big pharma have "given up on", spend the money which women wearing pink have entrusted to them, and then give the successful outcome to über-multinational conglomerates to charge as they please to our tax account.

Where are the big business hating lefties on this issue, eh?

OK. Let's play with the idea that pharma retains an interest in these drugs which they have "given up on". Why are CRUK spending donor money on a lost cause without ensuring any potential benefits are given to the country? Is the state so inept that they have no means of retaining a patent and tendering for manufacturers under licence?

If it's dead in the water, it's a waste of charity funds. If, however, there is a chance that there will be a successful outcome (which there must be), pharma should either be paying for the research since they are going to be reaping the profits, or it should be released. Or perhaps business foresight doesn't apply when the money being spent isn't one's own (or when you don't care too much about anything but your own salary).

CRUK receive a share of the revenue? Whoopy-doo. Nothing financially advantageous to the taxpayer (or charity giver), but more money for CRUK to do pharma's R&D work for them.

CRUK (latest income £498m) haven't been going for 108 years for nothing you know. And big pharma haven't been averse to throwing some reciprocal funding their way for just as long, either.

Quite a lot of symbiotic back-scratching going on there, methinks. Nothing which will do anything to alleviate NHS expenditure or re-imburse you for your efforts, mind.