Crocodiles to the rescue

I ran into a post on Slahdot telling there's a story on Reuters about researchers that've found out the crocodiles' immune system fights and kills HIV a lot better than the humans'. Now they believe the crocodile blood could be used to develop better antibiotics against HIV and such. Sounds good but as usual it might take years to actually get something out of it. How do I get this feeling that there's often news about new ways to fight HIV or cancer but then nothing's heard of them after the initial news. Well I can't say I've followed the news of that area closely at all so maybe there really is progress happening, it's not like there will suddenly be some universal antidote to cure everything.