Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 376 posts

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#171

Post by aaavl2821 »

brann0 wrote: post #54
PeterStuer wrote: post #24

The 'ideal' drug from a business point of view not only not cures the patient long term, it offer a short term mitigation while increasing the risk on relapse and thus future recurring consumption of the treatment. At the same time it can be IP protected to block alternatives and has an insured third party collective payment coverage to guard against the treated running out of funds to afford the perpetual dependency…

So we agree medicine cannot be managed as a business, right? It's ok if healthcare losses money, in fact it should be ok for all public sevices to operate and not being profitable.

If the US were to make all drug R&D a public service they'd have to basically increase the current NIH budget from ~$30B to probably $150B

It may be nice in theory to have government manage drug R&D, but it is not practical. It's simply too expensive

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#172

Post by nomorenomore »

rectang wrote: post #132
ramblerman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are jumping from one extreme to the other. Creating a public institution with no pressure to make profit is a disaster waiting to happen. You can certainly keep a 'competitive' environment which is regulated with incentives. And I do agree healthcare needs this, and shouldn't live purely by the free market.

It's refreshing to see skepticism of both market-based and government-based solutions. Too often I feel like I am being presented with arguments which require either blind faith in the "invisible hand" or denial that inefficiency increases in the absence of competition. > You can certainly keep a 'competitive' environment which is regulated with incentives. This is my preferred approach as well. It's worst weakness i…

> It's refreshing to see skepticism of both market-based and government-based solutions.

This in my opinion is a false dichotomy. The government can be owned/operated by coorporations or by the people or can be an entity in itself.

What I feel is missed by people leaning towards the idea of competition is that it is not a sustainable model under the current framework of ideas. If you optimise a society purely based on profitability, competition is the enemy, since it hinders individual businesses from maximising their profits. Hence the massive business consolidation we have seen in the last decade across the globe.

If you want competition because you want different ideas to be tested, then we need to explain what we want entities to compete for. Focusing on optimising one variable only, i.e. profit, will not work. We need new ideas.

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#173

Post by aaavl2821 »

TomK32 wrote: post #117
spydum wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be ignorant on this, but don't many of those countries benefit by the r&d funding happening in the US?

It's all multinational these days. Only 4/10 of the big players are in the US https://www.tharawat-magazine.com/facts/10-largest-pharmaceu... and that's quite logic if you remember that the European market is pretty much harmonized and twice as populated as the US.

the US market is the primary market for all big pharma companies regardless of where headquarters are bc it is the biggest

And big pharma companies don't do early stage research. Small companies do. Most of those are in US

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#174

Post by pjc50 »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #171
brann0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we agree medicine cannot be managed as a business, right? It's ok if healthcare losses money, in fact it should be ok for all public sevices to operate and not being profitable.

If the US were to make all drug R&D a public service they'd have to basically increase the current NIH budget from ~$30B to probably $150B It may be nice in theory to have government manage drug R&D, but it is not practical. It's simply too expensive

.. or a fifth of the military budget.

"It's not practical of the US to maintain the most expensive military in the world, it's simply too expensive" said nobody in Congress ever.

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#175

Post by draugadrotten »

chopin wrote: post #106
jimjimjim wrote: post #92

this is why can't have nice things. why doesn't goldman sachs just grow humans and harvest their organs?

How do you know they don't?

Is harvesting human organs a sustainable business model?

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#176

Post by jamroom »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #171
brann0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we agree medicine cannot be managed as a business, right? It's ok if healthcare losses money, in fact it should be ok for all public sevices to operate and not being profitable.

If the US were to make all drug R&D a public service they'd have to basically increase the current NIH budget from ~$30B to probably $150B It may be nice in theory to have government manage drug R&D, but it is not practical. It's simply too expensive

It's not too expensive - the US can easily afford $150B. We just have to decide that it's a priority and make it happen. Each year we some how find almost a trillion dollars for defense (more if you include "black budget") and no one blinks an eye.

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#177

Post by nomorenomore »

ekianjo wrote: post #145
brann0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we agree medicine cannot be managed as a business, right? It's ok if healthcare losses money, in fact it should be ok for all public sevices to operate and not being profitable.

Why is that ok if a private actor can do it better and cheaper? Most cases for public services are not really based on any good justification. On the contrary accepting that they lose money from the get go will drive soviet style inflation of resources and bankruptcy in the long run. Its been tried.

Can you explain what exactly you mean by private and public? I'm honestly confused. The statements that you are making sound like they come out straight from an Ayn Rand high school essay....

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#178

Post by PeterStuer »

refurb wrote: post #155
PeterStuer wrote: post #24

The 'ideal' drug from a business point of view not only not cures the patient long term, it offer a short term mitigation while increasing the risk on relapse and thus future recurring consumption of the treatment. At the same time it can be IP protected to block alternatives and has an insured third party collective payment coverage to guard against the treated running out of funds to afford the perpetual dependency…

That's the ideal in a world without any competition from other products. We don't live in that world so what you describe doesn't actually happen. We have more cures being developed now than ever before and it's very lucrative for the companies doing it.

Well, we certainly have exponentially more consumption of treatments for depression, allergies, obesity, pain, attention disorders, ... . That these are very lucrative for the companies supplying them (under a state-covered monopoly agreement) is also correct. Whether those constitute 'cures' is highly debatable.

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#180

Post by booleandilemma »

sametmax wrote: post #160
slater wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad the medicine part of TCM is junk science

Well it's essentially eat right, drink water, get some rest, etc. Not the mumbo jumbo you see in Hollywood movie. I can't think of any scientific experiment that would conclude: burn out, eat junk and drink mostly beer.

Well it's essentially eat right, drink water, get some rest, etc.

This is just healthy living. I don’t think we should ascribe it to Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Post reply on HN