There is a little talk of it here https://www.mackayandwhitsundaylife.com/article/remembering-...

I had seen him get bitten by a bunch of different snakes during his time demonstrating dangerous animals to my school on different occasions, he was always very kind and educational.

I believe he had was also involved in milking snakes and making antivenom, but the specifics evade me.

I believe he went to many different schools educating the small townships of the Australian outback (Imagine more than 20 less than 30) and always had time to answer my stupid questions as a child.

This part of my local culture will be missed.

I'm no fan of a system that prices things differently based on how much the dying person (or their insurance) is likely to be able to pay, but in such a system you've got prices dictated by demand... can you really reason your way from prices back to notions of authentic supply?

Fake price tags are a huge issue in health care policy.

Rich people paying whatever it takes to avoid dying provide a captive market for the first case (at least as far as snakes that rich people often get bitten by are concerned), and protein design tools also aim at this kind of shortage.

But as the article points out, most people getting bitten by snakes are affected by the second kind of shortage, because they're too poor to afford several hundred dollars. To address this, the newly-designed antivenom also needs to be cheap enough to manufacture that people actually buy it in large enough volumes that it justifies the initial R&D investment for the manufacturer.

[0] https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)00781-0/fulltex...

It might be the case that such a plant happened to be somewhat effective in treating venoms from some snakes in a particular area, but the ability to be universally effective is simply impossible.