What is the primary roadblock to using wild corals for commercial drug production?
Answer
Unsustainable harvesting severely damages sensitive ecosystems
A major practical hurdle preventing the translation of marine discoveries into usable medicines is the sourcing practicality. Many highly promising coral species are slow-growing or reside in remote, ecologically sensitive deep-sea or reef locations. Harvesting enough wild coral biomass—potentially tons of material per year—to sustain even preclinical trials, let alone full commercial drug manufacturing, is both often impossible due to slow growth rates and fundamentally environmentally devastating to the fragile reef structure itself.
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