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

theatlantic.com

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

#101

Post by anoncow »

belorn wrote: post #85
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.

It should also be mentioned (since we are talking about statistics here), that 1/3 of the total US medical research spending is from taxes (congress) and has been consistently been so for 20-30 years. That money has no connections with the current health care system, or insurance companies and is just pure tax money sent into research. From those 1/3, about 95% of all core research is supported, and around 80% of all…

Would love a source on the 95% figure.

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

#102

Post by ofacup »

adventured wrote: post #30
ofacup wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

keep on believing. you're the defender of freedoms after all

That's embarrassing. What does your glib, mostly obnoxious comment have to do with anything factual? You hate America so much you can't even give it credit for positive things that are factually accurate?

i'm sorry, but i'm not embarrassed. please show me where your "mostly obnoxious comment" has anything to do with anyone. the usa does not subsidise world healthcare. get over yourself

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

#103

Post by streptomycin »

ewoodrich wrote: post #83
adventured wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

"The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional standpoint.[1] The first official funding for the Project originated with the Department of Energy’s Office of Health and Env…

He didn't say it was unrelated to government involvement, he said it's one of many examples of how the US private sector has delivered innovation. See Celera's role in sequencing the human genome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celera_Corporation "Celera's use of the shotgun strategy spurred the public HGP to change its own strategy, leading to a rapid acceleration of the public effort."

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

#104

Post by amalag »

DennisP wrote: post #93
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…

So the problem is that healthcare innovation is a public good, which like all public goods is underprovisioned if you don't take steps. We approached this one by converting it to a private good within the U.S. But that's not the only solution. A natural entity to pay for drug development is health insurance companies, who would save a lot of money if drugs were patent-free. But they don't in fact fund patent-free dru…

Having the government fund patent-free drug development is a very interesting approach. Is the idea to do through proposals like Darpa?

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

#105

Post by electromagnetic »

coldtea wrote: post #96
electromagnetic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when the UK paid 1/20th of the cost to R&D Trident 2, but got 1/5 of the orders, I'd say yeah that was pretty heavily subsidized by the US to have an ally country with stealth-nuclear capabilities. I also think you have absolutely no clue who international politics works by your blatant naivety. There's a lot more at stake than "access to oil". FYI Iraq showed oil reserves far superior to that of Saudi Arabia…

> I think when the UK paid 1/20th of the cost to R&D Trident 2, but got 1/5 of the orders, I'd say yeah that was pretty heavily subsidized by the US to have an ally country with stealth-nuclear capabilities. "Subsidized to have an ally country" is completely different to "subsidized" (as in, "we did them a favor"). Plus, did they get those 1/5 of the orders for free? If not, I can't see how the fact that they paid 1/…

Thanks for the point by point there, but you basically just confirmed my initial opinion that you really have no clue beyond your own media-infused bias of the situation.

I don't think we have to introduce your head to your ass, because I think they're well acquainted with each other.

Boo hoo, US evil, blah blah.

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

#106

Post by amalag »

malkarouri wrote: post #97
electromagnetic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when the UK paid 1/20th of the cost to R&D Trident 2, but got 1/5 of the orders, I'd say yeah that was pretty heavily subsidized by the US to have an ally country with stealth-nuclear capabilities. I also think you have absolutely no clue who international politics works by your blatant naivety. There's a lot more at stake than "access to oil". FYI Iraq showed oil reserves far superior to that of Saudi Arabia…

"Saudi Arabia has a military far exceeding most European states" Speaking about knowledge of international politics, this statement is simplistic and arguably wrong. Saudi Arabia does have one of the largest military budgets in the world, but that does not translate to better or more military. It translates to buying more equipment and giving more money to the weapons industry in the US, the UK and other countries. T…

So actually we can say Saudis spend the most money on the most expensive hardware.

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

#107

Post by belorn »

kingkawn wrote: post #92
belorn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be mentioned (since we are talking about statistics here), that 1/3 of the total US medical research spending is from taxes (congress) and has been consistently been so for 20-30 years. That money has no connections with the current health care system, or insurance companies and is just pure tax money sent into research. From those 1/3, about 95% of all core research is supported, and around 80% of all…

If true these stat provide a compelling point of argument for expanded government research funding and less protection for the private insurance system. Do you have a source for it?

Mostly those was taken from a talk, but here is the data I could find: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nih): for the total % of funding and where that money come from. (http://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx): For different Categorization.

I would also add a bit old paper about cancer research (http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Disease/NC...), through they include all various stages of development. They attribute a 31% to industry.

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

#109

Post by anoncow »

venomsnake wrote: post #89
twoodfin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No problems? Why wouldn't your genius idea work in every sector of the economy? Surely Apple and Samsung could sell more, better phones if they didn't conduct market research or run ads...

Healthcare is unlike the rest of the economy. Drugs don't need marketing and market research. Because in healthcare you don't give what patients want but what they need. If a drug is best in its class doctors will not need "seminars", "education" to use it - it will be self evident by the trials and outcomes. Oh but wait - you cannot compare drugs to other drugs. You only compare them to placebo thanks to the cuffs p…

>You only compare them to placebo

I am not an expert, but look at the following study which compares two drugs.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00364806

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

#110

Post by TheCondor »

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…

Seems like there should be a penalty for evergreening patents like this without some measurable improvement in product quality.

I might have different feelings about it if India just rejected the initial patent, but the reapsearch has been paid for, profits taken...

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