Gene editing makes bacteria-killing viruses even more deadly

The viruses are engineered to damage essential <I>E coli.</i> genes.

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[ip_what]

BUT bacteriophages that are engineered to fight specific bacteria, in theory, could be beneficial to humanity. However, the Pharmaceutical industry will ONLY pursue it IF they feel they can make big profits at it. That means a bioengineered virus that they can patent and sell for MASSIVE profits. Short of that, I only see this as small, boutique industry that will remain in the experimental / last resort in the Western world. I hope I am wrong.

Open Source works for software, could it work for medicine?

For all its problems, I don’t see the pharma industry being unable to commercialize this. Successful phage therapy would have a lot of upside and should command a price premium over old school antibiotics.

All the obstacles that stop you from getting any other prescription from a lower cost provider (possibly but not necessarily with lower quality standards) would work just as well here. Even if they are self-replicating, ain’t no one going to be isolating them.

And no, I don’t want open source medicine. I don’t want a hobbiest making changes to my drugs, nor do I want to have to worry about which lab my drugs came from. Give me single payer and rejigger the incentives and penalties for the extant pharma companies instead.