{"id":47924,"date":"2019-02-16T17:07:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T01:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theaegisalliance.com\/?p=47924"},"modified":"2026-08-27T16:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:23:23","slug":"2016-big-pharma-researching-superhumans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/2019\/02\/16\/nel-2016-le-grandi-aziende-farmaceutiche-hanno-condotto-ricerche-sui-superuomini\/","title":{"rendered":"Superhuman DNA: How Big Pharma Turned Painless People and Unbreakable Bones Into Journavx and Evenity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_28341\"  width=\"480\" height=\"270\"  data-origwidth=\"480\" data-origheight=\"270\" data-facadesrc=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5vgkY95Lb8k?enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;rel=0&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;disablekb=0&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" data-epautoplay=\"1\" ><img decoding=\"async\" data-spai-excluded=\"true\" class=\"epyt-facade-poster skip-lazy\" loading=\"lazy\"  alt=\"Superhero Drugs: Why Rare DNA Is Worth Billions\"  src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/5vgkY95Lb8k\/maxresdefault.jpg\"  \/><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\" aria-label=\"Play\"><svg data-no-lazy=\"1\" height=\"100%\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 68 48\" width=\"100%\"><path class=\"ytp-large-play-button-bg\" d=\"M66.52,7.74c-0.78-2.93-2.49-5.41-5.42-6.19C55.79,.13,34,0,34,0S12.21,.13,6.9,1.55 C3.97,2.33,2.27,4.81,1.48,7.74C0.06,13.05,0,24,0,24s0.06,10.95,1.48,16.26c0.78,2.93,2.49,5.41,5.42,6.19 C12.21,47.87,34,48,34,48s21.79-0.13,27.1-1.55c2.93-0.78,4.64-3.26,5.42-6.19C67.94,34.95,68,24,68,24S67.94,13.05,66.52,7.74z\" fill=\"#f00\"><\/path><path d=\"M 45,24 27,14 27,34\" fill=\"#fff\"><\/path><\/svg><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Pharmaceutical companies have spent a decade mining a handful of people whose DNA does things the rest of us cannot. The pitch in 2016 was science-fiction: painless people, unbreakable bones, billion-dollar drugs. The drugs arrived.<\/p>\n<p>Steven Pete, of Washington state, carries a mutation in SCN9A, the gene that builds the NaV1.7 sodium channel that ferries pain signals through peripheral nerves. He can take a stab wound without flinching. That is not a gift. Because he cannot feel damage, his left leg was so wrecked he faced amputation. Timothy Dreyer, of Johannesburg, carries a mutation in SOST that overbuilds bone. He has walked away from car wrecks that should have shattered him.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1150434\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1150434\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1150434\" src=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Superhuman-DNA-Big-Pharmas-Billion-Dollar-Quest-for-Genetic-Gold-3.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1150434\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pharmaceutical companies treated those rare mutations as a map, not a curiosity.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Bloomberg&#8217;s original reporting framed both men as &#8220;genetic gold.&#8221; The industry listened. SCN9A and the related NaV1.8 channel became the template for a non-opioid pain class. On January 30, 2025 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/news-events\/press-announcements\/fda-approves-novel-non-opioid-treatment-moderate-severe-acute-pain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">approved Journavx (suzetrigine)<\/a> from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, an oral NaV1.8 blocker and the first genuinely new pain medicine in more than twenty years. Encoded Therapeutics followed in October 2025 with preclinical data on a one-time gene therapy meant to silence SCN9A itself. The bone side paid off earlier: studying people who overbuild bone through SOST produced romosozumab (Evenity), a sclerostin-blocking osteoporosis drug that tells the body to grow new bone.<\/p>\n<p>The hunt did not stop at pain and bone. Companies still chase &#8220;super-immune&#8221; holdouts, people who do not get fat or diabetic on the same diet as everyone else, alleles tied to slower aging, and families that almost never get a particular cancer. Artificial intelligence now does in hours the genetic comparison that used to take a lab months.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_47926\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47926\" style=\"width: 765px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"765\" height=\"430\" class=\"size-full wp-image-47926\" src=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Superhumans-DNA.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-47926\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Pete cannot feel pain. That is why his left leg was destroyed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The ethical problems are the same ones bioethicists flagged when this reporting first ran. Who owns a mutation found in one body? What happens when a company patents a pathway that exists because a child cannot feel a broken bone? Who gets the drug \u2014 the person who volunteered their genome, or whoever can pay? The FDA&#8217;s revolving door into industry has not gotten smaller. Journavx is a real medicine. It is also proof that &#8220;superhuman DNA&#8221; was never a comic-book headline. It was a business plan.<\/p>\n<p>The AEGIS Alliance will keep watching who profits from the outliers, and whether the people who donated their genes ever see the upside. Related: our reporting on <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/2016\/01\/16\/medical-marijuana-benefits-and-the-us-government-patent\/\">the U.S. government&#8217;s own cannabis patent<\/a> and the rest of <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/category\/news\/science\/\">Science News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pharma hunted rare genes in people who feel no pain and people whose bones will not break. That research produced Journavx in 2025 and the osteoporosis drug Evenity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,191961,204522,191987,24,204504],"tags":[191805,11569,193389,193590,191980,13984,13994],"class_list":["post-47924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-health","category-other-videos","category-science","category-us-news","category-videos","tag-big-pharma","tag-health","tag-marvel","tag-mutants","tag-real-mutant","tag-superhumans","tag-wolverine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Superhumans-DNA.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47924"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1198779,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924\/revisions\/1198779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}