Liam Shaw

On 18 July 2003, Johnson & Johnson filed a patent for bedaquiline, a new antibiotic against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It was first approved as a medicine in the US in 2012 and is now listed as an essential medicine by the WHO. What should a fair price be for an essential drug? J&J sell bedaquiline at tiered prices around the world: it is more expensive (but easily available) in wealthy countries and cheaper (but hard to come by) where it is most needed. According to Médecins Sans Frontières, in late 2022 it was nearly three times as expensive as it would be in low-income countries if generic forms were available.

It has been reported that a new antibiotic was ‘discovered using AI’. This needs a bit of unpacking. Finding any new drug means searching through ‘chemical space’ – the many possible configurations of atoms that can make up molecules. It’s difficult to get a grip on how vast this universe of possibility is. Most drugs consist of molecules with fewer than thirty atoms and a molecular mass of less than 500 daltons (a hydrogen atom has a mass of one dalton, give or take). It’s hard to estimate, but even if you restrict yourself to a handful of elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur) there are at least 10⁶⁰ possible molecules that fit these criteria. This is a big number, more than a thousand times the number of hydrogen atoms in the Sun. Exploring this chemical universe in its entirety is impossible. The hope is that using predictive algorithms from machine learning can help guide you to the right galaxy.

On 12 November, a man travelled to the UK on a small boat across the Channel. On arrival in England, he was taken to Manston processing centre in Kent. On the night of 18 November, he became unwell and was taken to hospital. He died the following morning. The Home Office said there was ‘no evidence’ that he had died of an infectious disease. A week later, a follow-up PCR test came back positive for diphtheria.  

One doctor who has worked in Manston told the Today programme of inadequate washing facilities in the ‘horrible and crowded conditions’. The chief inspector of borders and immigration said last week that the conditions he had seen on a visit had left him ‘speechless’. According to the Refugee Council, one boy contracted scabies – caused by parasitic mites – after a nineteen-day stay. A video taken by the campaign group SOAS Detainee Support on Sunday, 30 October showed children chanting: ‘We need your help.’