DCA and the Problem of Orphan Drugs

My friend and fellow OFB contributor, Dennis Powell, has an unsettling piece this week about so-called “orphan drugs” and one such drug's untapped abilities to treat tumors.

Because DCA is in the public domain — no one can patent it — no pharmaceutical company will undertake the research. A company could gain approval for it, but anyone then could manufacture it and the company would have to swallow the cost. No company stays in business doing things like that. DCA, by the way, is cheap to manufacture.