Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin • Hacker News Board

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#251

Post by shkkmo » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

nknealk wrote: post #30

Some considerations on manufacturing — there’s a variety of product quality steps necessary to release batches of medicine. The FDA mandates this as part of GMP regulations. These steps help ensure things like: * How do I know that every vial has the same concentration of insulin each time? That is to say 1 unit from a vial today and 1 unit from another vial is going to have the same dosing. * How do I know the insul…

> there’s a lot of value to purchasing medicine from regulated sources. I’m not against upstart competition against big pharma, but I worry that you might literally kill someone if you don’t include these product quality steps in your process.

Where are you getting this from? This goal of this isn't to have every diabetic brewing insulin in their garage so they evade the IP police in a distrubuted fasion. The goal is to create open IP needed for creation, purification and quality control that will allow labs around the world to create insulin in keeping with local regulations.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#252

Post by ineedasername » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #231

pitched wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing wheat and grinding it out into flour isn’t something I’ve ever heard anyone take on as a hobby before. Having all that actually cost less (including time) than buying bread would be a huge achievement!

I imagine the guy who built his own toaster from scratch probably also contemplating rebuilding the entire pipeline to produce the input to the toast. "Step one: acquire the ore. Step two: smelting iron ore..." http://www.thetoasterproject.org/page2.htm

At that point we're basically talking about Factorio.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#253

Post by mgarfias » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

RHSeeger wrote: post #193

RHSeeger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s fast acting, and varies in how it reacts in the body. I believe they offer R (short acting / 2-5h), N (medium), and L (long acting / 24h). The problem with the older insulins isn't so much that they're faster, it's that they're less "specific" (from my experience). A newer short acting insulin (Apidpra, etc) has a spike in the 15-30 minute range and the spike is steep and the tail (while up to 5 hours) is low.…

On a related note... if you can afford a CGM (continuous glucode monitor), especially one with alerts (like the Dexcom G6), I wholeheartedly recommend one. They are life altering for a type 1 diabetic. Being able to check your blood sugar by just looking at your phone (or separate receiver) is very convenient. I check my blood sugar 100 times a day, instead of poking a hole in myself 10 times a day. And I can (mostly…

I keep on trying to get one, but being well controlled, the ins cos won't approve it. And its pretty spendy out of pocket. My biggest use case would be an alert that my glucose levels are tanking while exercising so I can do something about it before I drop out. I find myself not doing things like long bike rides that I'd really like to do because of it.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#254

Post by shkkmo » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #174

pope_meat wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wall Street Smart Genius types have long held that curing disease is bad business, managing symptoms over the entire lifetime allows them to extract more capital out of the cattle. So, if you're looking to cure something you're going to struggle to find funding. Don't worry though, the economy will survive.

> Wall Street Smart Genius types have long held that curing disease is bad business, managing symptoms over the entire lifetime allows them to extract more capital out of the cattle Nobody tell the multibillion dollar biotech industry… And in case it needs to be pointed out, no, cures are massively profitable. If someone has a cure for a presently untreatable disease you will get money, you will make money, everyone…

> everyone will make more money and everyone will be better off.

Not the people who are currently making bank off of palliative care for that ailment. This absolutely creates perverse incentives that, while not ubiquitous, are hardly uncommon.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#255

Post by a3n » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

relax88 wrote: post #145

a3n wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call your congresscritter. Sorry, but regular people don't make "campaign contributions" of any noticable size, so all we get back is a form letter acknowledgement based on whatever box you checked for subject. Big Pharma, Big X and Big Y, on the other hand, "donate" enough "campaign contributions" that the campaigner can all but ensure (re) election based on recent name recognition to get the nomination, then coun…

Well maybe it’s time to start protesting? What always amazes me is how much this is tolerated in the “Land of the free”. At what point do Americans stand up for democratic principles? This pathetic “we can’t do anything” attitude will be how democracy dies. If my electoral district was gerrymandered or corporate donations through PACs we’re allowed in Canada I would be planning protests instead of typing this. Our sy…

When you're told you're number one your whole life, you don't go anywhere else, and your religion and patriotism are joined at the hip, why, there's no reason to change anything.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#256

Post by secabeen » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #98

nceqs3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true and just an industry talking point from the PBMs. They use revenue tricks to hide their profit margin. See https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/facing-criticism-pbms...

My information is from 10-K filings with SEC, and my statement is referring to net profit margins, which are what they are. Unless there is massive fraud going on, managed care organizations are not earning massive profits. If their PBM divisions are, then they are simply subsidizing the insurance division, but it would make no difference to people. The total expense for premium plus out of pocket expenses would not…

One big element is that a lot of large companies and non-profits run their insurance programs as self-insured. They pay the direct costs of the medical care of their insureds, and keep the annual premiums the entire employee-base pays. The "insurance companies" are paid a percentage of the total revenue/claims as an administration fee, so they have incentives to push the overall amounts paid up, not down. Self-insuring eliminates the profit overhead of the insurance companies, but screws the incentives.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#257

Post by a3n » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #172

nceqs3 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not true. PACs cannot donate more than a pretty low limit to candidates.

The whole point of a PAC is that they don't donate to the campaigns directly, but rather exercise their free speech to supply the public with "information" about the candidates.

Money is, after all, "speech."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

Walk softly and carry a big purse.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#258

Post by dempsey » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

Maybe Mark Cuban’s company can produce it: https://costplusdrugs.com/

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#259

Post by DoreenMichele » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

So this seems to be about the DIY biology rather than body hacking.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohacking

I don't know if body hacking can help with Type I diabetes but diet and lifestyle can certainly help with other forms of diabetes.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#260

Post by ineedasername » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #235

ipsum2 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent mentioned growing their own grain, which is substantially more difficult (planting, harvesting, milling) than growing your own yeast.

Let's go back to before real agriculture. 10K years ago People harvested wild grain, processed it, managed to make yeast starter, and produce an edible bread that sustained humanity until we learned how to domesticate it and build the infrastructure to study it until we know how all this works at the molecular level. But they managed to do it without any science or technology.

10k years ago they had actually already domesticated crops and weren't reliant (at least not in many places) on finding wild grain.

Regardless, it was all still done with science: Observation followed by trial and error informed by those observations. Maybe not the scientific method formalized by Francis Bacon, but it's still there in the outlines.