Abstract
The current Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shown us that the pharmaceutical research community can organize and administer large nonprofit clinical trials (RECOVERY and SOLIDARITY) and achieve the swift development of common, unpatentable drugs for a new indication: in this case an old, inexpensive drug, dexamethasone, for COVID-19. Why is it that such nonprofit efforts are so rare and are not organized as a systemic, routine part of drug development in the public interest? Based on my own experience with repurposing the alcohol-abuse drug disulfiram (Antabuse) for cancer, I identify at least four serious deadlocks to development of nonprofit drugs. All of these obstacles should be addressed to leverage the potential of the COVID-19 pandemic for better future healthcare systems in all countries around the world.
Keywords: Biomedicine; COVID-19; Clinical trials; Dexamethasone; Disulfiram; Nonprofit drugs.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Dexamethasone, clinical trials, disulfiram, biomedicine, Nonprofit drugs., Nonprofit drugs, 【초록키워드】 clinical trial, pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic, Cancer, drugs, drug, recovery, clinical, Research, Community, Healthcare system, effort, country, shown, identify, addressed, administer, organized, 【제목키워드】 drug, Multiple,