DIY Drug Production: FTVC's low-cost solution to expensive medicines

The drug Sofosbuvir is used to treat Hepatitis C, which is caused by a virus that kills 250,000 people every year. It is sold as “Sovaldi” by Gilead Sciences in the US. Many Hepatitis C treatments last up to a year, with cure rates of 70 per cent.

In contrast, a 12-week course of 84 Sovaldi pills (one pill/day) has 90 per cent cure rates. But prescription Sovaldi costs $1000/pill, so a 12-week course costs $84,000. However, the drug is also available at just $75 for 84 pills.

Welcome to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) drugs production. The “market leader” is the anarchist-collective, Four Thieves Vinegar Collective (FTVC). FTVC offers detailed instructions on how to set up a home chemical lab, with equipment assembled from commonly available parts ordered online. It also offers the download of a machine-learning program, Chemhacktica. This setup can be used with off-the-shelf chemicals to make many prescription drugs at home.

Like the Internet itself, Chemhacktica is an adaptation of an MIT-Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency research project called ASKOS. It uses machine learning to map pathways for molecule synthesis. The program crunches possible chemical reactions to figure out least-cost, easiest path to making a given molecule. It suggests potential precursor chemicals, and searches the Net to see what is easily available.

FTVC has developed a “MicroLab”, an open-source controlled lab reactor (CLR) made from components easily available online. It’s a DIY version of the CLRs used in labs. FTVC offers schematics, manuals and downloadable software for the MicroLab, along with circuit boards that it has developed. The MicroLab loads the chemicals for a reaction, controls temperature, adds chemicals, times actions, and more. FTVC also offers an “Apothecarium”, a recipe book for certain drugs.

Multiple drugs can be synthesised in small quantities at a fraction of the cost of the commercial version. In some cases, the drug may be in short supply, or simply unavailable. The FTVC also offers DIY Epipens.

In another project, FTVC persuades heroin dealers to add a drug that inhibits HIV infection to heroin retailed on the street. This is a win-win: Drug dealers are happy customers are not dying, while there are fewer HIV infections from shared needles.

FTVC’s science is rock-solid. In the TV show, Breaking Bad, a chemistry teacher sets up a DIY lab to make methamphetamine. The FTVC’s R&D is similarly done by qualified chemists, who reverse-engineer prescription drugs.

FTVC calls this project, “The Right to Repair the body”. The focus is figuring out DIY processes to duplicate expensive drugs cheaply for personal use, with off-the-shelf ingredients and equipment. Unlike pharma companies, FTVC doesn’t care about the legal nitty-gritty of duplicating drugs. Nor is it interested in scale. The collective offers the intellectual know-how for free.

One reason drugs cost more than their physical ingredients is that pharma companies need to recover investments. There’s a massive cost associated with creating a new drug, taking it through R&D, trials, and patenting, before producing at commercial scale. Patents and the premium available on patented drugs incentivise such innovation.

But the patent system is open to abuse and can create sub-optimal outcomes. Drug R&D focuses on diseases and conditions rich persons are prone to. Viagra and Ozempic are more profitable than anti-malarials. No major pharma company invests in researching for new antibiotics, leading to a situation where antibiotic-resistant bacteria are taking over the world.

Pharmaceutical companies also charge what they believe the market will bear, and for critical drugs, that often results in a substantial premium. As Sovaldi (and other cases) illustrate, the difference between production costs and price tags is striking, although nations with universal government health care (the European Union) and medical insurance (in India, or the US), do pick up some of these tabs.

DIY “pirated” drugs are a big legal grey area and issues with quality controls may have terrible consequences. But FTVC’s firm grasp of the science and its detailed recipes mitigate some concerns. DIY may offer a life-saving option when and where (like morning after abortion drugs in some US states) prescription drugs are unavailable.

Illegal DIY drugs also bring market forces into play. Most people will go to a pharmacy rather than slog through the hassle of setting up a CLR to DIY with uncertain quality. But the very possibility of DIY puts a ceiling on the prices. If the differential between the cost of home-production and the prescription price is large, people have the DIY option.