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Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

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Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#61

Post by jollybean »

magila wrote: post #16
hourago wrote: post #2

it's obvious that many medical supplies have an inelastic demand so are easily manipulated. When the market fails governments need to step in.

Healthcare is the most heavily regulated industry in the US. Many of those regulations were written specifically to minimize or eliminate the influence of market forces. You can't reasonably say the market has failed when it has been so tightly constrained by regulation.

Insulin is relatively cheap and available in all other civilized nations.

Somehow they've figured it out.

I can provide no insight as to 'how' but I suggest some reasonable regulation has something to do with it.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#62

Post by pg_bot »

ipnon wrote: post #24

How hard would it be to found an insulin startup? This seems like the kind of problem designed to be intractable, the "busy work" of bureaucratic private health care systems.

Depends on the type of insulin you want to make, but if you want to be at the cutting edge it would likely cost around a billion dollars.

You have to avoid the intellectual property minefield on the manufacturing side. The production of insulin and its delivery mechanisms are heavily patented and the big pharma companies will shut you down if you infringe on anything. If you want a reference for this happening you can google 'lusduna'.

Plus you have to make it through the FDA, which is its own can of worms. The 505(b)(2) is still not a cakewalk but at least it will give you 3-5 years of market exclusivity so you can recoup your costs. (Wait you can get market exclusivity for a biosimilar with an expired patent? That should sound insane to anyone not in healthcare.)

Then you have to actually manufacture and distribute your product. There are extremely high capital costs to get set up. For reference, Novo Nordisk's insulin manufacturing facility in North Carolina is 328,000 sqft and staffed by ~500 people 24/7. Just to get a comparable facility up and running you're talking about 400-500 million dollars in capital cost. Sanofi, Eli Lily, and Novo Nordisk have spent billions over the last decade upgrading and maintaining their facilities.

I would suspect it's about the hardest project you could tackle if you were a startup.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#63

Post by dragonwriter »

sbierwagen wrote: post #13
oneoff786 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/why-is-there-no-gene... It’s complicated

That doesn't seem to answer the question? It lists a bunch of biosimilar insulin analogues but doesn't say why California wouldn't buy them instead of manufacturing their own molecule.

California is not going to manufacture their own molecule, they are going to contract with someone, seems likely to be CivicaRx.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#64

Post by YeBanKo »

enahs-sf wrote: post #18

Sometimes I feel like this is the endgame where the US overall kind of declines but California starts managing itself better and operates almost like an independent country. Probably wishful thinking but would be great.

Any state in the US has a lot of autonomy, not just California. California has many issues though, as an aggregate indicator look at underfunded pension liability per capita or per household. It wasn’t looking good, then it got better in 2021 because investment performed well, but as we in a recession I think next numbers aren’t gonna look good. CalPERS have made some very questionable investment choice, which caused removal of the previous CIO. What is more concerning is that they tried to sponsor the bill that would allow them to keep secret due diligence information of certain private investments. They basically wanted to venture into lending business but keep the lid closes. This seems to me a disastrously risky.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#65

Post by YeBanKo »

rayiner wrote: post #54
gandalfgeek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t relate at all to that sentiment. California has got to be one of the most bloated and wasteful state governments in the entire US. High taxes and nothing to show for it. The entrenched far left seems bent on destroying the middle class, driving out business, regulating everything to death and displacing merit as a selection factor. Whatever glory Cali has— tech, entertainment, farming, weather, natural beauty…

I don’t think that’a entirely fair. California is the product of good governance during the 1950s-1980s. There is public infrastructure, like good schools and universities, that needs to be laid to attract industry in the first place. California probably wouldn’t the what it is without the UC system, for example. Of course that was a very different California.

California schools system is not good.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#66

Post by zanethomas »

enahs-sf wrote: post #18

Sometimes I feel like this is the endgame where the US overall kind of declines but California starts managing itself better and operates almost like an independent country. Probably wishful thinking but would be great.

California? The state with the highest poverty rate in the nation?

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#68

Post by ss108 »

gandalfgeek wrote: post #28
enahs-sf wrote: post #18

Sometimes I feel like this is the endgame where the US overall kind of declines but California starts managing itself better and operates almost like an independent country. Probably wishful thinking but would be great.

I can’t relate at all to that sentiment. California has got to be one of the most bloated and wasteful state governments in the entire US. High taxes and nothing to show for it. The entrenched far left seems bent on destroying the middle class, driving out business, regulating everything to death and displacing merit as a selection factor. Whatever glory Cali has— tech, entertainment, farming, weather, natural beauty…

As opposed to Republican states, which are utopias of innovation, culture, and industry, and totally not leeching on the merit of the blue states who keep transferring wealth to them via the Federal government.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#69

Post by YeBanKo »

renewiltord wrote: post #41
gandalfgeek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t relate at all to that sentiment. California has got to be one of the most bloated and wasteful state governments in the entire US. High taxes and nothing to show for it. The entrenched far left seems bent on destroying the middle class, driving out business, regulating everything to death and displacing merit as a selection factor. Whatever glory Cali has— tech, entertainment, farming, weather, natural beauty…

It's a mix. California has at least some reasons for why it is a tech haven: non-competes unenforceable; well-supported state university system California also gets a lot wrong that interferes with tech: prop 13 and friends, housing policy, incredible corruption, massive local conservatism But California is most like America as a microcosm: horrifically corrupt but such a powerhouse that it resembles a leviathan that…

Non-competes is an interesting point, I always wonder how much it impacts innovation. Probably very hard to measure and isolate this impact. Current tech scene seems to be a combination of few things: remnants of semiconductor industry, great climate and beautiful outdoors. College system obviously is a factor as well.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#70

Post by dragonwriter »

zanethomas wrote: post #66
enahs-sf wrote: post #18

Sometimes I feel like this is the endgame where the US overall kind of declines but California starts managing itself better and operates almost like an independent country. Probably wishful thinking but would be great.

California? The state with the highest poverty rate in the nation?

California has a high poverty rate as measured by local cost of living (but very low using the standard federal methodology) 8j no small part because federal funding formulas funnel money out of California because of its aggregate economic success, limiting it's ability to effect distribution.
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