Researchers announced on Thursday that they had decrypted the genomes of the 99 strains belonging to the common cold virus and had already developed a whole catalog of the virus’ vulnerabilities. According to Stephen B. Liggett, asthma expert at the University of Maryland and also the co-author of the study, the researchers are quite certain about having discovered the vulnerable part of the virus and they are also hoping to discover an antidote to it very soon.

The worst part of the virus that causes the common cold we all know under the symptoms of runny nose, fever, headaches and muscle aches, is that it doesn’t cause only this, but a whole other range of disease.

So the researchers’ hope is to find a drug against the virus which could also heal the 20 million people who suffer from asthma and the other millions who suffer from pulmonary diseases. Doctors and scientists believe that this rhinovirus that causes the common cold is the responsible one for half of the asthma attacks.

Dr. Glenn Tillotson, an expert on antiviral drugs at Viropharma in Exton, Pa., said that these findings are very interesting and useful but it might be kind of hard to convince any pharmaceutical company to take in such an expensive project. As Tillotson also said, the developing of the drug can cost up to $700 million, besides the big fights with the regulators and the financiers.

As the drug developers noted, people wouldn’t pay so much money to cure just a common cold, for which there are thousands of medicines on the market. It would also be very hard for the Food and Drug Administration to approve such expensive costs for a disease which is of so minor importance.