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by mcherm 5834 days ago
The small startup doesn't have the 10s to 100s of millions of dollars that it takes to get a drug approved in the US. So they would be happy to do it but are incapable.
2 comments

Google "drug startup" and you'll see that's not true. Startups in that field have to be larger scale than a ycombinator startup, but they do exist.
more like 1000s of millions. It's incredibly expensive to demonstrate safety and efficacy, and many promising candidates fail at the later stages (after 100s of millions already spent) when the response in humans is different from that of animal models.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development