Replies to post #95757 on NanoViricides Inc. (NNVC)

[fiveeasypieces]

Thinking aloud about a worse case scenario:

the current outbreak gets tragically out of control

All it would take is one suicide bomber (read: carrier) crossing the Rio Grande and then traveling to one or two of our major cities and everything accelerates, as you write, "tragically out of control." At that point, the price of NNVC will be the least of our worries.

[KMBJN]

Correct. Unfortunately there is little business sense in going after Ebola, since it affects so few people, and is generally self-limiting on a population scale (since it kills its host frequently, and requires body fluids for transmission).

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/no-market-scientists-struggle-make-ebola-vaccines-treatments-n167871

“I don’t see why anybody except the U.S. government would get involved in developing these kinds of countermeasures,” said Dr. Sina Bavari of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Frederick, Maryland. “There is no market in it.”

USGov is funding TKMR's RNAi Ebola drug (Phase I on FDA hold last month due to increased cytokine production in test subjects) to the tune of $100s of millions.

NNVC chooses viral targets based on profits per amount of material, plus ease of getting through trials (plus lack of good competition, plus lack of going after BP right away). Ebola is unfortunately (for those that have it) not a profitable disease to go after. In terms of numbers of people affected, or potentially affected, Ebola is over-hyped right now.