A woman whose epilepsy was greatly improved by an experimental brain implant was devastated when, just two years after getting it, she was forced to have it removed due to the company that made it going bankrupt.
As the MIT Technology Review reports, an Australian woman named Rita Leggett who received an experimental seizure-tracking brain-computer interface (BCI) implant from the now-defunct company Neuravista in 2010 has become a stark example not only of the ways neurotech can help people, but also of the trauma of losing access to them when experiments end or companies go under.
Kinda similarly, my brother was taking a drug (interferon) for treatment of a rare cancer that not many people need anymore (a better drug replaced the main use case the drug was developed for, which is different from my brother’s use case). The manufacturer discontinued the drug and noone makes it anymore so my brother and others who were relying on it simply lost access. I never knew this could happen.
If a drug manufacturer stops making a drug they still have the patent for, they should be required to give up the patent; then ideally, the government (‘a Crown Corporation’ where I’m from) should start producing it