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Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

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Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#51

Post by loeg »

charcircuit wrote: post #45
stego-tech wrote: post #22

I feel kinda bad for the writer, because it's a good question: no, curing patients is not a good business model, just like public transit is not a good business model. What a lot of folks neglect are N+1-order effects, because those are harder to quantify and fail to reach the predetermined decision some executive or board or shareholder has already made. Is curing patients a bad business model? Sure, for the biotech…

>just like public transit is not a good business model. Uber has almost a 200B market cap for offering private transit. There is a working business model for transit.

Not sure if this is just a misunderstanding but Uber is not "public transit" (a term of art), which is what GP is talking about. Uber is just not relevant to the point GP was making.

Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#52

Post by energy123 »

selcuka wrote: post #39
stego-tech wrote: post #22

I feel kinda bad for the writer, because it's a good question: no, curing patients is not a good business model, just like public transit is not a good business model. What a lot of folks neglect are N+1-order effects, because those are harder to quantify and fail to reach the predetermined decision some executive or board or shareholder has already made. Is curing patients a bad business model? Sure, for the biotech…

> I feel kinda bad for the writer, because it's a good question: no, curing patients is not a good business model, just like public transit is not a good business model. Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

Energy123's law of headlines: Any headline that ends in a question mark will have an associated comments section mentioning Betteridge's law, despite that law having being empirically falsified.

Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#53

Post by loeg »

tptacek wrote: post #46

We get threads about this on HN a couple times a year, and I feel like people have never thought this through. The company that cures T1D or MS will make approximately eleventy jillion dollars. The mustache-twirlers engineering MS into a chronic manageable disease rather than curing it would simply be outcompeted and put out of business by the straight-mustached cure owners. If you believe the mustache-twirlers are c…

Also like, ~everyone who works in pharma, from the grunts up to the C suite, is genuinely interested in making people's lives better and improving health. Profit is a strong motive, but it is not the only motivating force.

Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#55

Post by BrenBarn »

stego-tech wrote: post #22

I feel kinda bad for the writer, because it's a good question: no, curing patients is not a good business model, just like public transit is not a good business model. What a lot of folks neglect are N+1-order effects, because those are harder to quantify and fail to reach the predetermined decision some executive or board or shareholder has already made. Is curing patients a bad business model? Sure, for the biotech…

> If all you're judging is the first-order impacts on a single business, you're missing the forest for the trees.

The problem is our society is set up to give a lot of power and influence to businesses that are precisely interested in their own tree and not interested in the forest at all.

Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#56

Post by loeg »

jjmarr wrote: post #12

The suggestions on making sustainable cures: “Solution 1: Address large markets: Hemophilia is a $9-10bn WW market (hemophilia A, B), growing at ~6-7% annually.” “Solution 2: Address disorders with high incidence: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) affects the cells (neurons) in the spinal cord, impacting the ability to walk, eat, or breathe.” “Solution 3: Constant innovation and portfolio expansion: There are hundreds of…

Re (1), cure renal disease and save the US alone $30B/year.

Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#57

Post by loeg »

egypturnash wrote: post #5

Meanwhile over in the world where the government sinks a lot of money and energy into its citizen's healthcare, government-funded labs are exploring permanent cures for all kinds of problems via genetic therapy. But not here. Someone's gotta make mad bank off of every aspect of this shit here.

Which governments in particular; how much funding; and what outcomes have they actually achieved?

(In general the US actually subsidizes pharma for the rest of the world.)

Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#58

Post by exasperaited »

richbell wrote: post #49
charcircuit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just like public transit is not a good business model. Uber has almost a 200B market cap for offering private transit. There is a working business model for transit.

Uber's business model is to be a loss leader to hamper competition, then jack up rider rates and lower drive rates. This is technically a 'working' business model, but hardly one that benefits the people.

Uber more generally exists not as a service provider but as an international legislative bulldozer: everywhere will be reduced to the misery of the land of the free. They exist only to fuck up worker protections in every form they take.

Re: Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

#59

Post by exasperaited »

Buford_Jones wrote: post #31
puppycodes wrote: post #9

socialized healthcare please and thank you.

[flagged]

If so, it's not winning, is it? Private US healthcare is winning the race to the bottom on every measure that means a damn.
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