100 Percent

There's been controversy for decades about the correlation between damn gummint/academia/NGO basic research and drugs approved for drug companies. one such study concludes that the number is 100%, for a specific timeframe:

Amid debates over costs — and profits — from a coronavirus vaccine, a new study shows that taxpayers have been footing the bill for every new drug approved between 2010 and 2019.

Not everyone goes that far, but there's no debate that drug companies do little, if any, foundational research and development. Most, if not all, employed by drug companies disagree, but the fact remains that most drugs come out of basic biological/chemical research not done by private industry.

Which all brings us to some reporting today on the current meme of the various -glutide drugs. This is a long report by the estimable Gina Kolata (had I known one could make some kind of a living as a science reporter back when I was starting college...).

Obesity affects nearly 42 percent of American adults, and yet, Dr. Engel said, "we have been powerless." Research into potential medical treatments for the condition led to failures. Drug companies lost interest, with many executives thinking — like most doctors and members of the public — that obesity was a moral failing and not a chronic disease.

That's part one. Here's part two:

In the 1970s, obesity treatments were the last thing on Dr. Joel Habener's mind. He was an academic endocrinologist starting his own lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and looking for a challenging, but doable, research project.

If you read on, you'll find that his work led directly to the -glutides.

Here's part three:

In 1990, John Eng, a researcher at the Veterans Affairs medical center in the Bronx, was looking for interesting new hormones in nature that might be useful for medications in people.

His work was the next big step.

And so it went to private drug companies to commercialize the -glutides.

I never kept a link, but I suppose Dear Reader can find one if so motivated, though some wag described semaglutide thus: "This is what starvation looks like." The reason for the bon mot is simple: it is now public knowledge that semaglutide, at least in high enough dose, strips all tissue not just fat. It's called muscle wasting. We can all look like the octogenarian Mick Jagger.