2 min read dialogue

The Lizard That Launched a Thousand Prescriptions

The Lizard That Launched a Thousand Prescriptions

Seren: Someone online is losing their mind about tax money funding cockroach milk research.

Idris: Ooh. Gross-sounding basic research. Those are my favorite.

Seren: Why.

Idris: In 1992 a biochemist at the VA in the Bronx was running a systematic screen through Gila monster venom. Looking for a specific class of peptides — just not sure what he'd find.

Seren: Sure, fine. And?

Idris: He found one that mimics a hormone your gut already makes. One that tells your body to keep blood sugar stable after you eat and quiets down your appetite.

Seren: Okay, I can see where this is going.

Idris: The VA funded it because Gila monsters can go months without eating and stay metabolically healthy. They wanted to know how.

Seren: That's actually kind of interesting.

Idris: The molecule he found became the template for a whole new class of drugs.

Seren: Wait — is this the Ozempic thing?

Idris: GLP-1 agonists. Ozempic, Wegovy. The ones you can't get a prescription for because every doctor's booked out three months.

Seren: How long from the VA lab to the pharmacy shelf?

Idris: Twenty-five years.

Seren: Twenty-five years of private sector work on a public sector discovery.

Idris: After the VA passed on patenting it.

Seren: Sorry — the VA passed on it?

Idris: The researcher brought them the discovery. They said it didn't address a veteran-specific condition, so they weren't interested. He patented it himself. Paid out of pocket. Sold a booth at a diabetes conference and caught the attention of a biotech startup.

Seren: The government funded the research and then declined to own what it produced.

Idris: And Novo Nordisk made forty billion dollars in 2023.

Seren: Is there any mechanism for the government to get a cut when this happens?

Idris: There's something called march-in rights. If a federally funded invention isn't accessible to the public on reasonable terms, the government can force additional licenses.

Seren: Has that ever happened?

Idris: Not once in forty years. The Biden administration tried to build a framework for using it on drug pricing. It stalled, and the current administration has signaled it wants to go in the opposite direction.

Seren: So the right exists, has never been used, and the people trying to use it keep losing.

Idris: That's the current arrangement.

Seren: I'm starting to think the problem isn't the research budget.

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