Why Are Evidence-Based Drugs Expensive? Why Do Phytotherapy Practitioners Take the Easy Route?

Part One: Why Are Evidence-Based Drugs Expensive?

A Reminder Is Essential!

Let us remember what science means to us… Every aspect of life bears traces of knowledge and the science making it visible: Anton Van Leeuwenhoek invents the microscope and medical history changes; Galileo invents the telescope and we begin understanding the universe; James Watt invents the modern steam engine and economic history changes; printing spreads across Europe and the world with Gutenberg and Marco Polo, changing scientific history; Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin and millions formerly dying of simple infections have their lives transformed…

History of efforts to treat cancer, which predates even human history, has two major turning points: discovery of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. We live in years of great changes for humanity. We have all heard stories of elders whose cause of death was unknown. The years when many illnesses were called “the wasting disease” are not distant. Today, however, scientific knowledge and technology lead almost everyone—not only scientists or health professionals—to want tumors detected before even reaching 5 millimeters.

We Use It, Desire It, but Do Not Understand It!

We use scientific knowledge everywhere and eagerly seek its technological products, yet our attitude changes when understanding how knowledge is produced. Everyone perceives things according to their own knowledge level. What is not understood can then seem nonexistent or worthless.

Are modern medicine and its foundations—drugs, surgical techniques and imaging—not among the most important guarantees of safer, healthier, longer lives? Before modern surgery, many died from appendicitis, now a simple operation. Similarly, testicular tumors now have complete recovery rates above %90. Introducing cisplatin changed their history. But are scientific advances and new treatments as easy as this brief account suggests?

Cancer drug discovery is complex and expensive. Bringing a drug into clinical use takes approximately 15 years and nearly 1 billion dollars. Among every 10 thousand potential drugs tested scientifically in laboratories, only 1 reaches human clinical trials. Why is developing drugs, particularly cancer drugs, so lengthy and costly?

Most cancer drug discovery begins with identifying drug targets. Without knowing the enemy, you cannot develop weapons to defeat it. Every army has basic weapons, aircraft, ships and tanks, like conventional chemotherapy. Difficult wars need more: targeted ballistic missiles, excellent intelligence, monitoring/imaging of the enemy, agents, and so on. These resemble advanced radiology, targeted drugs and immunotherapies. Better identifying and striking a target requires expensive tools incorporating much more knowledge. This analogy even applies to household appliances or mobile phones. While befriending knowledge-derived technology in all aspects of life, hostility toward “good” chemicals in medicine intended to save lives is difficult for us to understand.

Returning to the Challenges of Cancer Drug Development;

The enemy—cancer cells—is invisible, and people tend to deny what they cannot see (remember that microorganisms were accepted after microscopes, planets after telescopes). The greatest challenge is knowing cancer at cellular scale, possible only through biological and genetic advances. Understanding cancer biology and genetics and developing both effective and safe drugs according to medicine’s basic “first do no harm” principle is understandably difficult, time-consuming and expensive.

Given that cancer has been with us for thousands of years and is especially difficult to treat when advanced, why do phytotherapy practitioners take the easy route and claim to treat it with plants, special methods or regimens? In the article’s second part , we will explain...