Cyberspies send ZOMBIES to steal DRUGS from medical research firms

Re: This is just so moronic

That's only the secondary purpose, their main purpose is to make lots of money. They will sell you an expensive patented pill with loads of side effects where an aspirin would do.

Actually I think not paying any tax might be #2.

Not that that's an excuse for the people hacking them, it's just more people who want to make lots of money.

Re: Why sell a cure for baldness when I can sell you a pill that stops your hair falling out as long

"A product that actually cures your condition (so you don't need to keep buying it) is actually a failure "

It must be nice to be so far removed from detailed knowledge of medical conditions to be able comfortably believe that.

There are really only two classes of condition. Acute - usually infections by viruses, bacteria and fungi. Viruses are hard but some short course treatments are available for some. Bacteria and fungi can be tackled by short courses although the nature of the organism or location of the infection can often require longer treatments esp. some fungal infections due to the difficulty of achieving therapeutic levels in, for example nails.

Some cancers can also be treated as acute problems depending on the mechanism being attacked.

Chronic conditions are very common, a product of life-style, genetics and environment. Reversing the disease in these conditions is MUCH less likely. A good example would be osteoarthritis where the damage to the joint may never be reparable. Here the aim of treatment may be to slow down the degeneration and ease pain. Ultimately large joints are best treated by replacements. Other chronic conditions like maturity onset diabetes again can't be simply reversed by drug treatment and in any case may require large scale changes to diet & exercise .

Ultimately many of the diseases may be tackled by vaccinations, gene therapy, stem-cell therapy, antibodies and life-style changes - these are still in many cases unknowns and potentially expensive unknowns.

By the way the current worries about antibiotic resistance are partly the result of the cost research combined with the limited returns due to the short treatment courses. The manufacturing costs of new, effective antibiotics can be enormous. I heard of one where the manufactured cost of the drug - which was enormous due to the length of the synthesis - was itself dwarfed by the cost of getting the lyophilised drug into a sterile sealed glass phial.