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Asked by to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Lynne Thomas answered on 18 Jun 2014:
There are many many different types of cancer and so we couldn’t ever find a single cure for all of them. But I’d like to think that if I personally made a cure for cancer, that I’d not be tempted to make lots of money out of it, rather to make sure that the people who needed it were able to afford it.
Unfortunately the process of discovering cures for cancer won’t let this happen. No one person can develop it all by themselves and you have to find ways that people can take the medicine so that it gets to the right part of your body too. The high cost of medicines is partly a side-effect of the high number of potential medicines that don’t make it through all of the testing phases and the health and safety regulations. And companies need to make money overall.
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Daren Fearon answered on 18 Jun 2014:
Like Lynne mentioned, cancer is a term used to describe a range of different diseases, so we are unlikely to find a single cure for all of them. We have treatments for some types of cancer and are working on more. Drug discovery needs a team of people that specialise in different scientific techniques. So it is unlikely a single person would find a cure for any disease. The teams of people that work in drug discovery are usually employed by a company, a research institute or a charity. Depending on where they work, the money from the development of a new treatment will be spent in different ways. It has to pay for the scientists and their work and might be invested into more research. Like Lynne also mentions, the money from discovering a treatment for a disease has to cover the expenses of drugs that haven’t made it for use in people and this can be quite expensive.
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anon answered on 18 Jun 2014:
It’s unlikely that I ever will because I don’t work with cancer, but I’d make sure I shared it with as many people as possible. I wouldn’t care about making money or being famous, I’d just be happy I was saving lives!
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