International Symposium on Inner Ear Therapies

The program looks nice. Plus, Decibel founder Charles Liberman and Marcelo Rivolta (his work has been largely discussed here) will each hold a lecture. Can we expect some good news? :)
 
Actually, there are two lectures that look very much interesting:
  • Connecting a new ear to an old auditory system: restoring hearing using a radically new approach
    B. Fritzsch, University of Iowa, IO, USA
  • Cochlear Synaptopathy and Neurotrophin Based Therapies: Progress and Challenges
    Charles Liberman, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA
 
I really hope we see some tangible gains in the coming years. It's scary just how little can be done for us medically. I'm glad that greater awareness is starting to come up.
 
I really hope we see some tangible gains in the coming years. It's scary just how little can be done for us medically. I'm glad that greater awareness is starting to come up.

There's a lot that can be done for us, I firmly believe that. Medical companies just don't care about us, simple as that.
 
There's a lot that can be done for us, I firmly believe that. Medical companies just don't care about us, simple as that.
That is completely incorrect. Medical companies know tinnitus and hearing loss is a multi billion dollar market. The problem is 1) The heterogeneity and complexity of Tinnitus 2) Repairing hearing loss requires major breakthroughs in medical science 3) Most people get over Tinnitus and accept it so would they take a drug anyway? (we are the minority here).
 
That is completely incorrect. Medical companies know tinnitus and hearing loss is a multi billion dollar market. The problem is 1) The heterogeneity and complexity of Tinnitus 2) Repairing hearing loss requires major breakthroughs in medical science 3) Most people get over Tinnitus and accept it so would they take a drug anyway? (we are the minority here).

Sure they do. That's why they're funding so much research for it and want to ultimaltely release drugs for it. Oh wait neither of those are true lmao.
 
Sure they do. That's why they're funding so much research for it and want to ultimaltely release drugs for it. Oh wait neither of those are true lmao.
The reason that there isn't so much money is that tinnitus is too hard to crack, as @Pleasure_Paulie said. The only way to measure it is by asking the person with it if it feels better, it has a large psychological component to whether the noise bothers or irritates, there are a large number of potential factors that can cause and affect it and spoil trials.

There is a lot of money to be made for the people who manage to solve the problem. But if you don't solve it, you are probably ruined as a company given the huge sums needed to progress trials and the fact that investors will likely lose interest in you for good.

The Pharma industry will stick to things they know they can achieve until tinnitus becomes something more quantifiable to treat and measure. They are not around to help people, they are around to make money. Tinnitus needs to be financially attractive enough for them to invest.
 
The reason that there isn't so much money is that tinnitus is too hard to crack, as @Pleasure_Paulie said. The only way to measure it is by asking the person with it if it feels better, it has a large psychological component to whether the noise bothers or irritates, there are a large number of potential factors that can cause and affect it and spoil trials.

There is a lot of money to be made for the people who manage to solve the problem. But if you don't solve it, you are probably ruined as a company given the huge sums needed to progress trials and the fact that investors will likely lose interest in you for good.

The Pharma industry will stick to things they know they can achieve until tinnitus becomes something more quantifiable to treat and measure. They are not around to help people, they are around to make money. Tinnitus needs to be financially attractive enough for them to invest.

Actually that's a good point. Once we have more of an idea what causes tinnitus then we will probably see a flood of research. Problem is we need that research now to help us get to that point. Also 20,000,000 people worldwide suffer "noticeably" from tinnitus. Even assuming only a fraction of that number get pills, there's still major profit being made for medical companies so they should get in on it.
 
As we're talking about the potential for a treatment for tinnitus/hearing loss in the market I would offer my opinion..

The high prevalence of tinnitus and hearing loss and the lack of approved treatments for tinnitus and hearing loss (limited to hearing aids/cochlear implants) is only going drive the development of drugs/technology to treatment either conditions.

The tinnitus/hearing loss market is expected to offer immense opportunity to the pharmaceutical companies that are already involved and those that decide to enter.

Remarkable advancements have been on recent years related to both conditions.

I will definitely be watching this 'emerging' market in the years to come...
 
By that I mean 20,000,000 that suffer from it to the point where it causes distress like us. 1 out of 7 people worldwide suffer from tinnitus but don't care that much.
But if they can rid of it for a few hundred bucks, a lot of them would still be interested.

So with approx. 40 million Americans who suffer from it, and another 60 million in Western Europe, the Western world itself is already a market of 100,000,000 potential customer. If they would be willing to pay an average of 250 bucks to get rid of it, you could be generating 25 billion.

I would happily pay 5,000 bucks to get rid of it (hence I take an average of 250 bucks).
 
I would happily pay $20000 (given it works and restores 100% of my hearing plus they give me an extra injection for the healthy one so that i can hear like a baby once again)
(You know that we will compensate for the ones who wont even bother for such a therapy so that the companies still get their numbers as planned)
 
I would happily pay $20000 (given it works and restores 100% of my hearing plus they give me an extra injection for the healthy one so that i can hear like a baby once again)
(You know that we will compensate for the ones who wont even bother for such a therapy so that the companies still get their numbers as planned)
Don't say that too loud or they will increase their target price :p.

But I agree, I'd pay that to get rid of my hearing loss, perhaps not if it would only cure tinnitus.
 
But if they can rid of it for a few hundred bucks, a lot of them would still be interested.

So with approx. 40 million Americans who suffer from it, and another 60 million in Western Europe, the Western world itself is already a market of 100,000,000 potential customer. If they would be willing to pay an average of 250 bucks to get rid of it, you could be generating 25 billion.

I would happily pay 5,000 bucks to get rid of it (hence I take an average of 250 bucks).

Yeah I've done the math. Assuming that RL-81 is the drug, and it's mostly developed, that means that there's about $10,000,000 left to develop it on average. Maybe more. But this means that they make more double of what they have left to spend in a year. It's great profit.
 

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