With U.S. measles cases climbing steadily back to pre-eradication levels, the pharmaceutical sector announced Thursday it is finally able to invest in complex, high-margin therapeutics for a virus that was rudely solved six decades ago.
Industry analysts report that several major biotech firms have aggressively shifted their research and development pipelines toward bespoke monoclonal antibodies and intravenous antivirals for the measles virus. The post-infection measles market, which hovered near absolute zero since the early 1960s, is now projected to become a multi-billion dollar sector thanks to a sustained, nationwide collapse in basic public health practices.
Venture capital has poured into the space over the last quarter, with investors eager to capitalize on an entirely new demographic of patients who have opted out of cheap, lifelong immunity in favor of critical illness.
For decades, our industry was entirely shut out of the measles space by a highly effective, single-dose preventative that costs roughly the same as a sandwich.
Halloway noted that the industry had long viewed eradicated diseases as a dead end for biological research. However, the recent willingness of American consumers to host Victorian-era pathogens has reopened the vertical. The company's new flagship treatment, an experimental five-course infusion administered during severe respiratory failure, is expected to retail for $4,200 per dose and require a two-week hospital stay.
Other firms are rapidly testing their own post-infection protocols. A leaked roadmap from a Boston-based pharmaceutical startup revealed plans to abandon their preventative research entirely in favor of an app-connected wearable that monitors a patient's plunging oxygen levels as the rash spreads, automatically ordering emergency therapeutics at peak surge pricing.
Market watchers predict the sudden viability of the measles sector will spur innovation across the entire spectrum of defeated illnesses. At press time, multiple biotech startups were reportedly blowing the dust off 19th-century pathology textbooks to secure early-stage funding for premium, subscription-based polio treatments.