Scientists’ biotech find could herald cheap pill revolution

SCIENTISTS claim to have found a way to produce medicines at a fraction of the price charged by big drug companies.

The move could enable millions of people in poor countries to be cured of life-threatening diseases.

Two British academics have devised a way of changing the molecular structure of an existing drug to turn it technically into a new medicine which is no longer under a 20-year patent to a multinational drug company and can be made and sold cheaply.