Copyright theage
“We get asked by patients, ‘Why can’t I get the treatment now?’” says Brahmbhatt. “The problem is that there are a lot of people who, in the interest of making money, try to push products onto the market. And hence, regulatory bodies have become very strict. And oncology, for 70 years, has been plagued with dogmas that, ‘This is the way it has to be done’. And when you come up with something out of the box, people will keep rejecting it.” In the series, the scientists travel to the US to seek patents and funding. “I was amazed when I met one of those hundred-million-dollar-plus people who was in his late 70s,” says Brahmbhatt. “I did a presentation and he sat there and listened for an hour. And at the end, he said, ‘Just tell me one thing … This cancer thing – is it painful?’ That shocked me”. MacDiarmid says there is a pervading notion that, despite Australia’s record of breakthroughs in medicine, the best inventions happen in the US.
