Cancer drugs gone wild
The speech was simply a thought experiment highlighting the potential of financial engineering in the 21st century. Give pharma companies the freedom to pursue the riskiest potential treatments risk-free and you could get some crazy proposals. Here are a few examples of the breakthroughs that can occur when companies dare to dream big.
Does herpes virus, or another viral foe, hold the key to curing cancer? Source: WikiCommons.
T-VEC is not your traditional biologic drug. It is actually a bioengineered form of the herpes virus that, once injected into cancerous tumors, replicates, and produces an immune-stimulating protein that puts a bulls eye on cancer cells throughout the body. Despite its promise and intriguing mechanism of action, T-VEC is not in further development at Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN). However, Oncolytics Biotech, Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:ONCY) has shown promising results for its bioengineered form of reovirus called Reolysin. Initial phase 3 results showed that 86% of patients taking the drug had reduced tumor mass or growth after six weeks of treatment.
Novel antibodies and viral treatments show promise in making significant progress against various types of cancer, but aren’t the only way to approach a cure. Doxil from Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) was developed decades ago and was the first cancer treatment to protect its active ingredient in a fatty envelope, or liposome. This Trojan Horse approach slowed the chemotherapy drug’s release, reduced toxic side effects, and was a huge step forward in advancing treatments. . While Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) has been facing a supply shortage of Doxil, the company stated in its last quarterly report that it is planning on using a different manufacturing approach to continue marketing this drug.
What does the future hold?
Now imagine if we had 40 of these game-changers being developed in one 10-year period. Big Pharma could take deep dives into stem cells, gene therapy, and miRNA treatments that are often cast aside for their excessive risk until decades of research is completed. Do you see the potential of such a fund now? It may seem like a lot of money to raise — be it $20 billion, $40 billion, or more — but we spent much more on bailing companies out of the financial crisis. Heck, the central bank purchases $85 billion in bonds and mortgage-backed securities each month. This fund would potentially cure cancer. I don’t know how long it will take before individual investors are able to crowd-fund a cure for cancer, but I strongly believe that one day our portfolios will hold Cancer Bonds. Maybe Nuclear Fusion Bonds, too.
You can view Andrew W. Lo’s speech in its entirety, or skip to 33:48 to listen to his pitch for engineering a financial solution to cancer.
The article Can Financial Innovation Unlock a Cure for Cancer? originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Maxx Chatsko.
Fool contributor Maxx Chatsko has no position in any stocks mentioned. Check out his personal portfolio, his CAPS page, or follow him on Twitter @BlacknGoldFool to keep up with his writing on energy, bioprocessing, and emerging technologies.The Motley Fool recommends Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool owns shares of Johnson & Johnson.
Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
