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| Four Thieves Vinegar |
Four Thieves Vinegar collective is a group of anarchist biohackers founded in 2015 who combine free/open chemistry with open-source hardware in response to the pricing policies of big pharma companies. The collective has independent biology, chemistry, data science, programming and hardware teams whose degree of collaboration is dictated by the project at hand.
Four Thieves doesn’t sell anything, but publishes instructions for others to assemble the necessary devices to produce a range of medicines.
Their first project published instructions for a DIY epipen – an epinephrine autoinjector they named the EpiPencil - that can be made for $30 and reloaded for $3. The second is instruction on how to build a full MicroLab. The MicroLab includes a reaction chamber consisting of a small mason jar mounted inside a larger mason jar with a 3D-printed lid. A few small plastic hoses and a thermistor to measure temperature are then attached through the lid to circulate fluids through the contraption to induce the chemical reactions necessary to manufacture various medicines. The whole process is automated using a small computer that costs about $30.
Four Thieves Vinegar claims to have successfully synthesized five different kinds of pharmaceuticals using MicroLab. They used the device to produce Naloxone, a drug used to prevent opiate overdoses better known as Narcan; Daraprim, a drug that treats infections in people with HIV; Cabotegravir, a preventative HIV medicine; and mifepristone and misoprostol, two chemicals needed for medical abortions.
Since Four Thieves Vinegar isn’t actually selling or distributing the medicines made by its members, what they're doing isn’t technically illegal. They are effectively just liberating information on how to manufacture certain medicines at home and developing the open-source tools to make it happen. In the future, Four Thieves Vinegar wants to focus on manufacturing drugs for orphan diseases, which are defined as conditions that affect fewer than 200,000 people worldwide. If a drug for the disease exists, it is generally prohibitively expensive to obtain.