skepticpalooza
Member
Twitchbod,
It's not a matter of caring, it's more a matter of priorities and frankly, random chance. As you may know, all research-based pharma companies (ie the ones who develop new drugs) concentrate their efforts in a handful of areas each. Some, like Genentech, go after cancer using biotechnology. Others concentrate in cardiovascular, inflammation, etc., because you need a critical mass of expertize in a therapeutic area to have a prayer of consistently developing innovative drugs in that area. And, yes, there are companies that focus on neuroscience. But let's think about this for a second - what causes BFS? An active viral infection in the nerves? An over-reaction by the immune system? An imbalance in neurotransmitters (e.g anxiety)? Each of those three hypotheses would lead you down completely different paths - antivirals, some type of immunosuppressant, and some type of neurotransmitter target (whether traditional monoamines like serotonin or something further upstream). Now, let's say you guessed the right underlying target or cause of BFS. I'll spare you the details of target selection, developing animal models, etc and skip forward several years in the process to clinical trials in humans. In order to gain FDA or EMEA approval, you would need to develop and validate a scale or survey that could accurately measure the level of suffering (perhaps number of twitches, number of muscle groups affected, amplitude of twitches, not to mention the cramping, fatigue, etc.). Once you've got those two things in place, now you can start testing compounds to see if they work and are safe.
So, with that in mind, it really does make sense for researchers to focus their efforts on areas of highest unmet need, like the bogeymen of this forum, ALS, MS, etc.
All of that being said, many drugs that reach the market are used for very different uses than what the scientists were originally studying. Viagra being the most famous example - it was originally synthesized to treat high blood pressure, but never made it to market as a blood pressure med - ironically it was only recently approved as a treatment for a rare form of high blood pressure (pulmonary hypertension). So, who knows, maybe somebody will come up with something that hits BFS head on by accident?
It's not a matter of caring, it's more a matter of priorities and frankly, random chance. As you may know, all research-based pharma companies (ie the ones who develop new drugs) concentrate their efforts in a handful of areas each. Some, like Genentech, go after cancer using biotechnology. Others concentrate in cardiovascular, inflammation, etc., because you need a critical mass of expertize in a therapeutic area to have a prayer of consistently developing innovative drugs in that area. And, yes, there are companies that focus on neuroscience. But let's think about this for a second - what causes BFS? An active viral infection in the nerves? An over-reaction by the immune system? An imbalance in neurotransmitters (e.g anxiety)? Each of those three hypotheses would lead you down completely different paths - antivirals, some type of immunosuppressant, and some type of neurotransmitter target (whether traditional monoamines like serotonin or something further upstream). Now, let's say you guessed the right underlying target or cause of BFS. I'll spare you the details of target selection, developing animal models, etc and skip forward several years in the process to clinical trials in humans. In order to gain FDA or EMEA approval, you would need to develop and validate a scale or survey that could accurately measure the level of suffering (perhaps number of twitches, number of muscle groups affected, amplitude of twitches, not to mention the cramping, fatigue, etc.). Once you've got those two things in place, now you can start testing compounds to see if they work and are safe.
So, with that in mind, it really does make sense for researchers to focus their efforts on areas of highest unmet need, like the bogeymen of this forum, ALS, MS, etc.
All of that being said, many drugs that reach the market are used for very different uses than what the scientists were originally studying. Viagra being the most famous example - it was originally synthesized to treat high blood pressure, but never made it to market as a blood pressure med - ironically it was only recently approved as a treatment for a rare form of high blood pressure (pulmonary hypertension). So, who knows, maybe somebody will come up with something that hits BFS head on by accident?