Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

Post by semi-extrinsic » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #679

HWR_14 wrote: post #372

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>Less than two years from lab to clinic is highly unusual. I assume like most other COVID vaccines/treatments, the timeline is shrunk by going straight to more expensive phases of the trial instead of having preliminary ones of escalating cost and confidence. Or at least prepping for them. For instance, all the vaccines started setting up commercial production around the same time they started trials, because it's no…

This has interesting implications when we consider how much money drug companies “should” be paid for inventing important new life-saving medicines. I frequently hear/read complaints of "that's outrageous [that this medicine costs $X]!" Well, maybe it is; maybe it isn't, but if you make sure it costs $X/100, I can be pretty sure you'll get less drug R&D.

Post by 0x7E3 » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #692

azinman2 wrote: post #688

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And that was due to the wisdom of operation warpspeed. Trump is under credited for this (whether his idea or not, he could claim it as such). What’s shocking to me is that he hasn’t been more pro-vax given we have the vaccines we do because of his administration.

>What’s shocking to me is that he hasn’t been more pro-vax given we have the vaccines we do because of his administration. He made vaccinations a partisan wedge issue to such a degree that he can't afford to walk back from it if he wants to run again in 2024, similar to the Republicans' former position on Obamacare.

Post by jollybean » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

bun_at_work wrote: post #319

toyg wrote: post #109

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Yeah it's not really researchers that I'm worried about, it's their bosses.

Can you provide an example of a treatment people would like that 'big pharma' wouldn't produce because they couldn't make a profit on it? This is such a ridiculous argument, IMO. As a thought experiment consider something like cancer treatment. If some pharma company researcher found a way to 100% prevent or reverse cancer, why would the company hide that? In the best case, they could make a ton of money from it by s…

Post by Turing_Machine » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

vidoc wrote: post #574

chadash wrote: post #111

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Unfortunately, it's expensive. The cost of R&D to bring a new drug to market is around $1 billion, and this doesn't include the cost of marketing (though it does include the cost of drugs that fail the approval process)(see https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762311 ). At these numbers, it's hard to raise the money unless you think the drug is gonna be profitable.

> The cost of R&D to bring a new drug to market is around $1 billion This is one of the most well know, tired, scammy talking point big-pharma has used for decades. Hint: in the very document you linked, htere is a 'costing method' section, you might want to read it a bit more carefully and you will discover the big scam: opportunity cost, not cost.

Post by jollybean » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 8:02 PM UTC

GhettoComputers wrote: post #357

orra wrote: post #144

I am thinking: if and when this is approved, we have to think about distribution. This drug is fantastically effective at preventing hospitalisation and death, if administered within three days of symptom onset. That gives quite a long time! But we still need to make it easy to take. Do pharmacies give it out? ER rooms? We don't want to wait until people are hospitalised; we are trying to avoid that. So when you test…

Who is the market for this? The assumption is that you give it ASAP and people want to take it. If people aren’t interested in vaccinations they may not want it either, and the vaccines are already very effective at preventing these issues.