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A million-dollar drug

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Re: A million-dollar drug

#2
"Well, one pharma company has the patent, and we need to let them charge what they think the market will bear. Sorry LPLD carriers, you have to die now." Apparently, this is the best the world can manage in 2018.

Re: A million-dollar drug

#3

"Well, one pharma company has the patent, and we need to let them charge what they think the market will bear. Sorry LPLD carriers, you have to die now." Apparently, this is the best the world can manage in 2018.

I don't understand how anyone can think patents are a good idea.

Re: A million-dollar drug

#5

"Well, one pharma company has the patent, and we need to let them charge what they think the market will bear. Sorry LPLD carriers, you have to die now." Apparently, this is the best the world can manage in 2018.

I don't understand how anyone can think patents are a good idea.

Not a fan of it either, but how do we incentivize companies to research and create new drugs if they can't make back the huge cost of clinical trials?

Re: A million-dollar drug

#6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how anyone can think patents are a good idea.

Not a fan of it either, but how do we incentivize companies to research and create new drugs if they can't make back the huge cost of clinical trials?

What if governments paid for the clinical trials?

Re: A million-dollar drug

#7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how anyone can think patents are a good idea.

Not a fan of it either, but how do we incentivize companies to research and create new drugs if they can't make back the huge cost of clinical trials?

Did you read the article? The company that charged that absurd price acquired the patent, they had nothing to do with developing it.

Re: A million-dollar drug

#8
in society, we have another large, one-time purchase people often make in which there are special financial arrangements and rules: buying a home. it seems to me that gene therapies (high priced, one-time use drugs) are going to warrant alternative financial instruments. there's absolutely no reason this drug should have failed when the amortized cost over 10 years is less than an inferior product. regardless of the other questions this is a pure market failure by the financial industry.

edit: the downvotes probably assume I mean the patient is going to pay out of pocket. of course not. the insurance companies would be paying. the only inferiority between gene therapies and non-cures is their pricing structure. we invented a solution to this problem thousands of years ago: debt.

Re: A million-dollar drug

#9
This seems bizarre to me:

Van Deventer says the company never considered lowering the price. "Why would we? Pricing shouldn't be a political decision. It should be a rational decision based on merits and value."

If no one will pay $1 million, your revenue is $0. Assuming the drug costs much less than $1 million to make, surely any revenue number is better than $0?

Re: A million-dollar drug

#10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fan of it either, but how do we incentivize companies to research and create new drugs if they can't make back the huge cost of clinical trials?

What if governments paid for the clinical trials?

The article has a section that talks about the difficulty of getting the drug even approved for testing by governments in the first place.
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