Live data from Hacker News

Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

fortune.com

31–40 of 218 posts

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#31
post #22

Adobe facing pressure as study finds $99 program can be made for $0

Let’s be reasonable here: CDNs aren’t free. They might be spending a couple of cents per user!

But yeah, people might not like the implementation or idea of intellectual property, but that’s what’s happening here. Pretending it’s something else makes it hard to argue about it.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#33
post #2

Ozempic is blowing up on TikTok. Celebs and young people are using it left and right. This is wildly popular and there are resellers and apps popping up everywhere to make it easy to get prescriptions. "Ozempic face" has become a meme as people try to guess who is using it. Several of my neighbors are admittedly using it. And they've lost 30, 40+ pounds in a matter of months. Months . This is a diabetes drug. There h…

> This is a diabetes drug. There has to be a biochemical catch here. What if there isn't a catch? Sometimes technology really does just improve the human condition with no serious downsides. Consider refrigeration or sanitary surgical techniques.

Thyroid cancer is one catch.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#35

Of course, the marginal cost of production is low at scale. Most of the mark-up is for advertising and overhead. Also, once it goes generic that will hurt future sales too.

No, it’s for the massive upfront cost of research and regulatory approval.

The stuff basically sells itself at this point; marketing probably doesn’t even register in their budget for it.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#36
post #16

Novo Nordisk is now Europe’s most valuable company. Congrats to them.

[flagged]

I get that point, but given that Ozempic sells for significantly less in other countries I think it's worth considering why it's that much more expensive in the US

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#38
post #9

Producing it is not the hard part. Researching it is... And you are not paid for your research "up front". It's added to the cost afterwards.

I'm not Pharma industry expert but ... I'm pretty sure it's much the same as venture capital. That is to say that's it's not that expensive to R&D it, certainly compared to the eventual sale price, but it's carrying the cost of the hundred potential drugs that never made it to market that's the killer.

It takes $300m to $2B to get a drug approved.

And the approval rate is less than 12%.

The crazy pricing is to compensate for the failed projects.

Also, it's not like you can bootstrap yourself or grow organically like Startups.

You have to wait for like 10 - 15 years. To actually start selling it.

[1]: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.policymed.com/amp/2014/12/a...

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#39
post #9

Producing it is not the hard part. Researching it is... And you are not paid for your research "up front". It's added to the cost afterwards.

I'm not Pharma industry expert but ... I'm pretty sure it's much the same as venture capital. That is to say that's it's not that expensive to R&D it, certainly compared to the eventual sale price, but it's carrying the cost of the hundred potential drugs that never made it to market that's the killer.

No it’s also ludicrously expensive to R&D a drug, even if you just count the costs of the successful program. You’d be looking at easily $50-$150MM just in clinical trial costs, not to mention the years or decades of preclinical work.

Factor in the failed programs and you’re looking at about $2B of spend in order to bring a drug to market.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#40
post #18

why just novo nordisk? https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/at-850-000-drug-to-treat-bli... can be made for .1c heck, a top of the line AMD server chip costing $10,000 only contains a few milligrams of plastic copper gold and sand.

"There are currently about 1,000 cases of people who suffer from hereditary degeneration of the retina, and 10 to 20 new cases are expected to be added each year." I mean, let's be realistic here.

so it would be better for orzempic to cost $850,000 and limit its indication to people with MODY?

How is that realistic?

TBH I have way less a problem with pharma industry being allowed to make profits than health insurance companies. In fact the US is about the only country in the world that allows profits from health insurance.

Post reply on HN