AI-Designed Antivenoms: New Proteins to Block Deadly Snake Toxins

Re:AI-Designed Antivenoms: New Proteins to Block Deadly Snak... by aurizon on Saturday April 19, 2025 @11:54AM (#43737232)

Now, how to prevent the attempts of big pharma to patent these to make tens of thousand of Indians/Africans pay big $$. These AI modelers are reputedly not validly a human creation = patent/copyright. These protein constructs might have a long room temp shelf life = needed in most Indian/African bite victims.

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Re:AI-Designed Antivenoms: New Proteins to Block Deadly Snak... by philipkglass on Saturday April 19, 2025 @01:30PM (#43737897)

These will probably be ignored rather than patented/monopolized by Big Pharma. A few million treatable cases per year globally, concentrated in low-income countries, is a small market to chase. Medical needs in low-income countries need to be addressed by governments or nonprofits rather than for-profit companies.

EDIT: replaced "100,000 treatable cases" with "a few million treatable cases" per https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11020954/ referenced by Lol_arco.

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Re:AI-Designed Antivenoms: New Proteins to Block Deadly Snak... by aurizon on Saturday April 19, 2025 @01:51PM (#43738079)

One hopes a storable and long lasting product will be able to save many of those 100,000 deaths(??), but you are correct - it might not offer enough $$ to USA pharma?

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Re:AI-Designed Antivenoms: New Proteins to Block Deadly Snak... by Lol_arco on Saturday April 19, 2025 @02:28PM (#43738346)

Yeah there isn't enough money in it for big pharma. Maybe some other form of funding, but this is the reason why all these tropical diseases are neglected.

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