#pharmaceutical-innovation

#pharmaceutical-innovation

The U.S. and its citizens should not be the ones to shoulder the burden of subsidizing the world's access to drugs and biologics. Nor should the U.S. patent system - the envy of the world - be made the scapegoat for the lack of lower drug costs domestically.

"We're able to transform a prolific environmental and societal waste into such a globally important medication in a way that's completely impossible, using chemistry alone or using biology alone," says study coauthor Stephen Wallace, a chemical biotechnologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Spravato, also known as esketamine, targets glutamate and can produce rapid effects for those with treatment-resistant depression, offering hope where traditional antidepressants fail.