[msandford]

This is also a well documented phenomena in the US if the compound isn't patent-able. You gotta get the $50mm to get it through the FDA from somewhere, and if there are no patents there's literally zero years before the generics come out.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140925/08202528637/crowd...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid

So if this guy doesn't want to play ball with a pharmaceutical company, it's entirely likely that his research could go under-reported or under-utilized for many years.

Now of course, these facts don't MAKE his story true. Just that your offhand dismissal of the possibility of it being true isn't quite so rock solid.