I'm purely speculating here - in order for IC patients to...

I'm purely speculating here - in order for IC patients to experience benefits in their OA they must firstly have both conditions, and be able to connect the dots between the two instead of putting it down as a coincidence. If they have OA they are also probably in their 50s, 60s and above - hardly the ripe age to start a non-revenue producing business and have to deal with IPOs, capital raisings, patents, pre-clinical trials, clinical trials...etc. Most would just be happy that their knee pain is gone. The general attitudes of the NZ medical professionals in the article also shed light on this - everyone is just waiting for someone else to make the sacrifices required. It truly takes a pioneer to risk all their lifetime savings to start up a junior biotech and tackle the challenge of getting a drug approved. Enter Paul Rennie...

So why hasn't a big Pharma company attempted to commercialise it? I think big pharma are the last companies to be worried about in terms of developing new drugs. Too much red tape and bureaucracy. The vast majority of innovation takes place in junior biotechs (which big pharma later buys out). For example, Pfizer until recently hadn't got a new drug approved for 20+ years despite spending billions a year on "R&D" (even then that new drug was originally developed by a junior biotech which they acquired).