Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#31

Post by coldtea » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:24 AM UTC

mansigandhi wrote: post #18

nhashem wrote: post #4

This is basically the paradox of US healthcare innovation. Canada can tell its pharmaceutical companies, "yeah, that cool drug you just invented, we're not gonna pay you what you want for that." And what option does the pharmaceutical company have? Convince healthcare providers to charge retail prices to their patients as an out-of-pocket expense, or... reduce prices accordingly. Because healthcare payments are not f…

> The US is effectively subsidizing advanced healthcare for every other country in the world. That's a very misinformed statement.

>What if the European countries had to had to pay for their own defense?

The European countries pay big bucks for their own defense, thank you very much.

And the US doesn't provide any defense at all. It merely uses its pressure to get the European countries to participate in its inane crusades and wars, from Korea to Iraq, which are for it's own interests.

Plus, defense against what? The only thing that brings any trouble to European countries is mostly aligning with US interests in some wars (e.g EU got some terrorist attacks by islamist groups in revenge for this -- few and far between in any case).

Not to mention that what the US officially considers "threats" are either lies (like Bush's WMDs in Iraq) or BS third world countries that couldn't harm a duck even if they wanted to (and which could not care less about having any war with Europe) but happen to be rich in oil or other resources.

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#32

Post by adventured » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:25 AM UTC

alive-or-not wrote: post #15

forrestthewoods wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that list 48.17% of all health care R&D spend is by US based companies. Sounds like the US is subsidizing the world to me.

Health care R&D is extremely expensive in US (insanely high executive salaries, "lobbing" expenses, etc.). US companies may spend as much as the rest of the world, but deliver a lot less innovation.

I don't see any evidence to support your very dramatic claim.

Quite the opposite. From early chemotherapy on to the human genome, stem cells, the Allen Brain Atlas, The Gates Foundation, modern biotechnology, organ regrowth, medical devices like the CT scanner (half invented in the US) or the da Vinci system of robotic surgery, etc etc etc the modern healthcare / pharma / biotech world owes a spectacularly massive debt to the US. To say nothing of the surrounding infrastructure everything requires related to technology from the microprocessor to the Internet. How much did that tech speed up R&D, try quantifying that little contribution.

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#33

Post by bitdiddle » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:27 AM UTC

nhashem wrote: post #4

This is basically the paradox of US healthcare innovation. Canada can tell its pharmaceutical companies, "yeah, that cool drug you just invented, we're not gonna pay you what you want for that." And what option does the pharmaceutical company have? Convince healthcare providers to charge retail prices to their patients as an out-of-pocket expense, or... reduce prices accordingly. Because healthcare payments are not f…

I think this notion of the drugs companies needing incentives for R&D is somewhat of a myth. A large amount of the research, which they avail themselves of, is publicly funded at places like NCI and NIH. That's right, we the taxpayer helps produce these 70K dollar drugs.

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#34

Post by coldtea » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:28 AM UTC

melling wrote: post #27

mansigandhi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is effectively subsidizing advanced healthcare for every other country in the world. That's a very misinformed statement.

Please provide some data to back that up because it is a common belief that the high cost of producing a new drug is offset by the US consumer.

What high cost? US companies pay more money for advertising than for creating the drug.

Add other regulation and inefficiencies, and subsidized research would work with 1/10 the money.

Not to mention that because of the commercialization of medicine, tons of research is for BS like Viagra and other such drugs (like the tons of stupid feel-good "energy" drugs, so that your boss can squeeze even more overtime out of you), where far more important but less lucrative stuff is ignored.

That's how you get the US sucking donkey's balls in infant mortality rates. As if it was some third world country.

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#35

Post by forrestthewoods » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:31 AM UTC

bergheim wrote: post #19

forrestthewoods wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that list 48.17% of all health care R&D spend is by US based companies. Sounds like the US is subsidizing the world to me.

By that logic, you should add the population for the other countries and compare to the US, which is about 345m compared to the US, 315m - which doesn't sound like the US is "subsidizing the world" to me.. Although I guess a big chunk of that revenue probably comes from the US.

No you shouldn't. Your 345m is heavily weighted by Japan's 127m population which accounts for 2.3% of the research spend from the chart in question.

If you want to play that game then Japan is incredibly subsidized by the US and Europe, but that's not the question at hand. :)

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#36

Post by gambiting » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:34 AM UTC

inDigiNeous wrote: post #24

mansigandhi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Do you have an idea of how science and medicine works?

Just wondering what this has to do with Hacker News. But anyway, check out: http://www.cancer-research-awareness.com/why-chemotherapy-ne... http://www.smashcancer.com/2010/08/22/cancer-lies-and-the-me... http://current.com/green/89138817_cancer-is-not-a-disease-ch... Just a few writings and articles speaking about the lie that is chemotherapy. I have an idea how medicine works, let me spell it out here for you: 1. Po…

This "lie", as you call chemotherapy, has kept my dad alive for 5 more years than what the doctors were giving him when he was first diagnosed. Would he get cancer if he didn't eat sugars,fats and over processed food our western society eats? Maybe. But you don't know that. Instead, you are trying to neglect the obvious, which is the fact that chemotherapy is actually saving lives of people like my dad. I agree that we should improve the way we live our lives, eat healthier, exercise more etc etc.....but you can't bash companies making life saving drugs.

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#37

Post by adventured » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:36 AM UTC

adaml_623 wrote: post #26

nhashem wrote: post #4

This is basically the paradox of US healthcare innovation. Canada can tell its pharmaceutical companies, "yeah, that cool drug you just invented, we're not gonna pay you what you want for that." And what option does the pharmaceutical company have? Convince healthcare providers to charge retail prices to their patients as an out-of-pocket expense, or... reduce prices accordingly. Because healthcare payments are not f…

You say that US healthcare leads the way in innovation but in certain key measures like Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy it's not leading the field at all.

The US is within a small margin of error to being on par with both Japan (adjusting for their huge fraud in longevity) and South Korea on life expectancy. That sure sounds amazing considering our obesity / diet problems. I'd argue in fact that our advanced healthcare system and large investment is the only reason Americans aren't dying at 70 instead - we're able to keep people alive that would otherwise die much younger. I'd argue if you matched diets to other countries with very high life expectancies, we'd easily match or surpass them in longevity and live to 83 to 85. Our problem is mostly lifestyle.

Infant mortality? What, you think Bosnia and Russia actually beat the US in infant mortality, or is it more likely they're lying? (given Russian men live to 60).

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#38

Post by adventured » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:40 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #34

melling wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide some data to back that up because it is a common belief that the high cost of producing a new drug is offset by the US consumer.

What high cost? US companies pay more money for advertising than for creating the drug. Add other regulation and inefficiencies, and subsidized research would work with 1/10 the money. Not to mention that because of the commercialization of medicine, tons of research is for BS like Viagra and other such drugs (like the tons of stupid feel-good "energy" drugs, so that your boss can squeeze even more overtime out of yo…

If that were true, the rest of the world would have radically surpassed the US in terms of drug innovation, research breakthroughs, medical device technology and so on.

Because their lower investment levels should be producing returns so much higher, that they would quantum leap the US while spending less. That hasn't even remotely happened.

Sucking donkey balls on infant mortality? You should become better educated.

How about Canada, at 5.22/1000 versus 6.81 for the US. That's your magic line on 3rd world countries and donkey ball sucking? Well Singapore is 1.92, and Japan is 2.6, so Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Britain are apparently 3rd world countries by comparison.

Half of the US infant mortality rate is due to high black poverty. Maybe you should become informed on the root causes of problems in America before making bad assumptions.

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#39

Post by userulluipeste » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:43 AM UTC

nicktelford wrote: post #9

nhashem wrote: post #4

This is basically the paradox of US healthcare innovation. Canada can tell its pharmaceutical companies, "yeah, that cool drug you just invented, we're not gonna pay you what you want for that." And what option does the pharmaceutical company have? Convince healthcare providers to charge retail prices to their patients as an out-of-pocket expense, or... reduce prices accordingly. Because healthcare payments are not f…

You're forgetting an important factor. Competition. Pharmaceutical companies operate in an environment with very little competition. Obviously, the purpose of patents are to grant a limited monopoly in return for the innovation, but when that innovation is the only viable treatment for something, the manufacturer can just name a price and everyone has to live with it. The problem is that the US healthcare system isn'…

"the manufacturer can just name a price and everyone has to live with it"

Considering the context of the discussed business and that the offer is not always just something optional, I might add "or die with it..."

Re: Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 in the U.S. Costs $2,500 in India

#40

Post by nikster » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 10:44 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #2

> the patentability of modifications to existing drugs under Indian law A key point here is that the original drug itself was patented, and has expired. The issue that the Indian court had with Gleevec patent application is that it only rearranged the molecule in a new crystal pattern, ie Polymorphism. The Indian court consider polymorphism to be a well known technique when working with drugs, and just applying polym…

The US patent and IP system is completely perverted.

The reason to have copyrights and patents is to fairly compensate the innovators (that part works really well). But there's an expiry on both patents and copyright - that's explicitly there so innovations can benefit the people, and to spur new innovation. And that's where the US system falls apart. Loopholes are found times and again and in the US once you have a copyright or patent, you basically have it forever. A monopoly, hurrah!

That's just plain wrong. The US needs to fix its system. I imagine when that happens it will also make more sense for Pharma industry to spend more on R&D than they spend on marketing and bribing Doctors and healthcare providers and politicians.

Really happy to hear Indian courts don't fall for this sort of crap.

How can Disney have a copyright on Mickey Mouse? An absolute joke.