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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)

#101

Post by beeflet »

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…

I don't buy that the moon landing is easier to fake than the existence of a cure.

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

#102

Post by axus »

shridharxp wrote: post #93
stego-tech wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer someone lives, the more potential value they can contribute to a society. The opportunity cost is something we've figured out from a medical perspective, but shareholders want returns today, not returns fifty years from now. That is what we need to address.

>The longer someone lives, the more potential value they can contribute to a society. This is questionable. Highly populous countries have worse living conditions than moderately populous ones, currently.

Better living conditions cost more money per family, which leads to less children.

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

#103

Post by danielmarkbruce »

missedthecue wrote: post #64

Of course it's sustainable. Gilead Sciences is a $155B company originally built on a single drug (Sovaldi) that literally cures Hepatitis C. Now they are more diversified and have a stacked pipeline. The business model just changes to one like oil or mining exploration where you find a deposit with a limited lifespan and you have to keep the treadmill going to find new ones before the mother lode that funds your firm…

This is sort of true but skips the main problem with the framing. "Sustainable" doesn't even matter. If I drill an oil well for $100 mill and it throws off $30 mill a year of profit for 10 years and then dries up, it's a great use of capital. The idea that something with a life of "not forever" is bad by nature is silly.

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

#104

Post by tartoran »

reactordev wrote: post #61
stego-tech wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer someone lives, the more potential value they can contribute to a society. The opportunity cost is something we've figured out from a medical perspective, but shareholders want returns today, not returns fifty years from now. That is what we need to address.

The longer someone lives, the more potential value can be squeezed . This is how they should think.

I don't like the squeezing mindset but if people contribute to their health insurance and don't use those services because they're healthy it could be seen as squeezing those patients but it really isn't, it's just how insurance should work.

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

#105

Post by tptacek »

beeflet wrote: post #101
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…

I don't buy that the moon landing is easier to fake than the existence of a cure.

Scientists are routinely independently re-discovering each others discoveries. The effort to discover cures to important disease is intense. The conspiracy to suppress a cure would have to be vast.

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

#106

Post by KingMob »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #44
snowwrestler wrote: post #7

It doesn’t matter if it is a sustainable business. People will do what they can to maximize their income now. If 10 companies are withholding a cure to milk the patients, any one of them can break from that strategy at any time, with near-instant financial reward and competitive advantage. It is not a stable equilibrium.

Yet meanwhile, women entered the legal profession in the 1920's but wages did not catch up until the 1960's when the Equal Pay Act was passed. Economics 101 would say you could snap up competent female lawyers for a little more than they were paid at their current firm and thus wages would creep up, yet this would not happen.

Not sure why you're being down-voted. Efficient markets for talent shouldn't tolerate racism/sexism/etc, but all the historical evidence is to contrary. It's almost as if rational _homo economicus_ is a bad foundation.

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

#107

Post by parpfish »

tacitusarc wrote: post #36
stego-tech wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's one way to look at it I suppose, and it's why you see Healthcare Insurers and Private Equity diversify into elder care for a captive audience. In reality though, I was not-so-subtly trying to suggest that if something is necessary for the public good (curing diseases) but a bad business model, then perhaps Capitalism itself is the wrong vehicle for that segment of industry and a different option - be i…

> In reality though, I was not-so-subtly trying to suggest that if something is necessary for the public good (curing diseases) but a bad business model, then perhaps Capitalism itself is the wrong vehicle for that segment of industry and a different option - be it an incentive structure, government-owned pharmaceutical research, or managed economy - is needed. I believe the great innovation of capitalism is markets,…

isn't this just a way of saying that markets aren't representing externalities correctly?

a company doesn't have to pay for bad things they produce as a byproduct (e.g., pollution) and they dont get to benefit from good things they produce as a byproduct (e.g., curing a disease).

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

#108

Post by selcuka »

energy123 wrote: post #52
selcuka wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Selcuk's Law of Generalisations: Any mention of an adage will have an associated comment claiming that it can be falsified by giving at least one counter-example.

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

#109

Post by gsky »

shridharxp wrote: post #93
stego-tech wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer someone lives, the more potential value they can contribute to a society. The opportunity cost is something we've figured out from a medical perspective, but shareholders want returns today, not returns fifty years from now. That is what we need to address.

>The longer someone lives, the more potential value they can contribute to a society. This is questionable. Highly populous countries have worse living conditions than moderately populous ones, currently.

Highly populous countries were colonized and robbed off their resources until recently.

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

#110

Post by sebmellen »

com2kid wrote: post #69
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a person dies from a disorder in their 20s, they'll never buy your heart medication in their 70s. Today's patient is tomorrow's patient.

The FDA needs to declare death a disease that patentable drugs can be developed against. All of a sudden the flood gates get opened to encouraging drug research on anything that keeps people alive longer.

I quite like this concept. Did you come up with it?
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