[HN Gopher] China's Clinical Trial Boom
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China's Clinical Trial Boom
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 84 points
Date : 2025-04-28 15:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.asimov.press)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.asimov.press)
| Veedrac wrote:
| So much of policy success comes down to doing obvious and
| reasonable things, and most of the problem is how to incentivize
| making those choices. For all China's flaws, they've figured this
| out.
|
| The best news here is that we might finally have a prosaic means
| to escape our modern-era applied biotech stagnation, the same way
| solar has appeared as a means to kick the feet out of traditional
| energy sources. China is pretty new to being an R&D powerhouse,
| but there are few more worthy causes.
| narrator wrote:
| The best outcome for the current China/U.S conflict is lots of
| peaceful competition that forces each society to innovate.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Well during the Cold War with U.S./USSR conflict there was a
| lot of competition that heralded many new technologies,
| especially the dual use technologies that are good for both
| civilian and military uses. I can imagine something happening
| again if the U.S. had good leadership.
| henry2023 wrote:
| One of the parties involved already decided they don't event
| wanna try to compete.
| munchler wrote:
| Meanwhile DOGE has cancelled more than $2 billion in federal
| research grants. The US is shooting itself in the foot when it
| should be competing at its best.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/nih-layoffs-budget-cuts-med...
| whatshisface wrote:
| The administration is also pressing for a 55% budget cut to the
| National Science Foundation. The NSF is the primary funding
| agency for engineering, physics, mathematics, chemistry and
| computer science, among many other fields. If there's any doubt
| about the seriousness of that situation, the director has
| resigned over it. When some worried that US world leadership in
| physical and life sciences may be surpassed in a generation, I
| doubt anyone realized it might only take one year.
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/nsf-director-resign-...
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| Fascinating, then, how the head of DOGE has deep financial
| interests in China. It's really not out of bounds to suggest
| that his benefactors could've pulled some strings to kneecap
| the US.
| buyucu wrote:
| China is having a boom in everything, not just in clinical
| trials.
| mmooss wrote:
| Competing with it is a problem for conservativism. Some
| admittedly loose reasoning:
|
| Conservativism preserves currently widely accepted structures,
| including ideas, by ridiculing and excluding new ones; social
| structures, by outlawing / persecuting / demonizing new ones as a
| threat to 'our traditions' and 'way of life'; businesses, through
| tariffs and other anti-competitive measures - the House GOP is
| considering a bill that reduces antitrust powers, for example;
| existing economic sectors, by government picking winners and
| funding them, limiting the economy to what is popular and that
| the government already understands, such as manufacturing; etc.
|
| Remember the land of the individual, of personal freedom, of
| opportunity, that by its culture generated invention and
| innovation that other places, without that culture, couldn't
| match. What China, which is limited by central control, is doing
| is copying well-established innovations - a biotech industry that
| relies on clinical trials. Cutting edge stuff - decades ago.
|
| What has made the US successful is creating, innovating, and
| moving on to the next thing - things the government and most of
| the public are far behind on. Look at the boom in the IT industry
| over the last several decades (also no longer cutting edge except
| in limited ways).
|
| How can that happen now? The US has currently embraced relatively
| extreme conservatism. People are afraid to offer challenging
| ideas, and make their money from rent and from squeezing revenue
| from old ideas (the stereotypical private equity model). They
| can't go anywhere except by pleasing the oligarchy, now including
| the government.
| vladms wrote:
| While agree with the whole analysis, I do wonder if
| most/enough/all the ones supporting the regime change in US are
| really conservatives ("embraced extreme conservatism") or they
| just feel/are "left behind" hence they want any change. People
| might not care who is in power (although they will suffer the
| consequences), but if after 4 years they do not live better
| they will say "let's change" - without really checking what is
| the alternative...
|
| In the end, alternation of rulers is probably on average
| healthier than having the same guys over and over, but it is no
| guarantee of success.
| theLiminator wrote:
| I personally think you're right. I think that in general a
| lot of people want change for the sake of change if they're
| unhappy (or often even if they're happy).
| dlisboa wrote:
| > Remember the land of the individual, of personal freedom, of
| opportunity, that by its culture generated invention and
| innovation that other places, without that culture, couldn't
| match. What China, which is limited by central control, is
| doing is copying well-established innovations
|
| They don't seem to be limited by it at all and in many areas of
| high tech innovation they are years ahead.
|
| It's very hard to argue that their EV market, for instance, is
| not an example of competitiveness driving innovation, which is
| supposedly the hallmark of the free market.
| 486sx33 wrote:
| Aren't chinese trials how we got Covid ?
| miki123211 wrote:
| China's population is almost twice that of the US and EU
| _combined_. If what you 're lacking for is patients, there's no
| better place to go to.
|
| Not only that, but we're also a lot more obsessed with patient
| privacy. If somebody dies of cancer, there's no headline news
| about them dying of a cancelled trial, even if that's actually
| what happened. If patient data leaks, there's both a PR nightmare
| and legal consequences for the institution. That drives
| priorities.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if (some) Chinese researches are allowed
| to SELECT * from citizens where disease = 'bone_cancer', whereas
| researchers in the US have to send people to waiting rooms in
| hopes of catching an eligible patient[1]. Unless this gets
| changed, things won't get better.
|
| We really need to start optimizing for min(deaths) instead of
| min(bad_pr) or min(outrage). That's a genuinely hard problem in a
| democratic society that respects the right to free speech (which,
| to be clear, is a very good society to live in IMO). In a way,
| it's a good problem to have.
|
| [1] is a really good and accessible overview of why drug trials
| are so hard and what could be done to make them easier, it's
| worth checking out for anybody who wants to dive deeper into the
| subject.
|
| [1] https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/drug-
| developm...
| kulahan wrote:
| I strongly disagree. There is no need for humans to be
| immortal, and there is nothing wrong with tacking healthcare
| research to public opinion at a bare minimum. If nothing else,
| it helps ensure our medical care doesn't veer too far off
| track.
| holoduke wrote:
| Just a walk in a random big city in China reveals how fast they
| are progressing. The speed of things changing is ridiculous. In
| almost every field they are getting better. And fast. Thats what
| you can achieve when your country has 40 years of mass production
| experience. The thing I hope most for is that China gets its own
| high performing chips so that companies like Nvidia really get a
| competitor.
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