Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half • Hacker News Board

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#101

Post by haldujai » Sun, Jun 04, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

qwytw wrote: post #85

yieldcrv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the pricing is partially due to a lack of collective negotiation the government programs carry a lot of weight as a large client but are currently barred from negotiating on prices part of some US universal healthcare proposals are to just allow existing government programs to negotiate on prices, while simultaneously extending coverage to more people

It costs about $7000 in Europe (the price seems to be similar in different country even though there is no EU wide collective negotiation). The price in the US seems to be around double in the US. But maybe that just pharma companies do PPP adjusted pricing? e.g. it seems to cost ~1500 in India for instance. Americans are simply much richer and also significantly more on healthcare than people in other countries.

> It costs about $7000 in Europe (the price seems to be similar in different country even though there is no EU wide collective negotiation).

That seems like a monthly price? The treatment regimen in this study is daily for 3 years.

It's hard to find out what drug prices really cost as there are a lot of discounts and negotiations behind the scenes but the best source in this instance would be a cost-effectiveness study which uses local data and happens to be a hot-topic in every national cancer society so is widely available.

EU and US pricing isn't too far off with both being ~130k USD a year give or take.

> it seems to cost ~1500 in India for instance.

There were generics, and there probably still are in parts of the world but they're technically "illegal". AstraZeneca shut down a few and there are pending countersuits against them.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/astrazeneca-staves-last-...

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#102

Post by anton96 » Sun, Jun 04, 2023, 11:12 PM UTC

xivzgrev wrote: post #18

My mother in law has stage 4 lung cancer. Tagrisso is extending her life. The cancer has been shrinking since going on it with few side effects. Unfortunately stage 4 cannot be cured, and at some point tagrisso stops working. My understanding is the cancer mutates and eventually develops resistance. Then she will go on chemo and her quality of life will go down. I am thankful for modern medicine that we get some extr…

This gets me curious, if we would be sure cancer become resistant at some point.

Why would we give higher dose of the cure at start ? Wouldn’t the body handle it ?

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#103

Post by peteradio » Sun, Jun 04, 2023, 11:20 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #31

londons_explore wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats still 1366 people every day worldwide. Think about that... If the committee whose job is approving this medicine get results in on Friday, but don't sit down to approve it till the following Monday, then 4098 people die unnecessarily.

It always surprises me how little effort we put into getting things from the lab to the people quicker. As soon as we have compelling data some discovery (medical or otherwise) might help lots of people, it should be almost a manhattan project type effort to get it into the hands of everyone worldwide asap.

It's hard to "dn no harm" when you yeet drugs at people based on maybe being useful.

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#104

Post by haldujai » Sun, Jun 04, 2023, 11:48 PM UTC

miramba wrote: post #87

ramraj07 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically true is how most science education got screwed up in every field of science. We went from educators like Carl Sagan and Feynman who would take great pains to make sure they don't just tell technically true statements to most researchers today blatantly saying misleading technically true statements for a living to get grant money. Every second grant and paper nowadays literally starts with a disingenuous g…

> They all literally share the same DNA, they can't be that different. They share the same DNA in the sense that every cell in that body does. But the different types of cancers have different mutations per cell type and the increasingly precise identification of those is the basis of the recent new treatment options. Histological classifications become less and less relevant, instead mutations and subtypes of mutati…

> Histological classifications become less and less relevant

What do you mean by "histological classification" because every interpretation I can think of is very incorrect.

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#105

Post by cutler » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 12:26 AM UTC

In other news shares in Marlborough saw hockey stick growth.

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#106

Post by dennis_jeeves1 » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 1:13 AM UTC

breck wrote: post #53

> After five years, 88% of patients who took the daily pill after the removal of their tumour were still alive, compared with 78% of patients treated with a placebo. My chance of living 5 years goes from 78% to 88% by taking an expensive pill everyday with side effects? That's not an amazing thing. If it was 78% to 95% with one or two pills, or a positive healthy lifestyle change, then that's something. I'm going to…

Pity you have been down voted by people who have not understood one of the common patterns that big pharma utilizes to rake in profits.

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#107

Post by dennis_jeeves1 » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 1:15 AM UTC

breck wrote: post #71

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far too cynical. You are incredibly uninformed about the significance of this drug.

I could be wrong. Absolutely. I am always open to more information. However, I'm usually not wrong about these things. This pattern is so common in big pharma it's an easy bet right now. Based upon the limited information released I would bet: 1) it has high odds of being very lucrative for a small number of people 2) it will be a net negative for patients^ ^ Patients would be better off with more money and using an…

>I could be wrong. Absolutely. I am always open to more information.

You really need not be apologetic, being too 'open' to repeated nonsense from the same entities (big pharma in this case) is not a good thing either.

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#108

Post by lelanthran » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 10:01 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #90

panabee wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the FDA face an unenviable challenge: how to promote healthcare innovation without endangering patients? regulations that are too loose may cause suffering and death while regulations that are too strict will delay or block prevent helpful treatments. regulating healthcare is extremely difficult and largely a thankless job. one solution is to approach national healthcare like national security and let people voluntee…

> in short, overstate risks but let patients decide. Then you have to battle the people selling highly marked up snake oil as an 'experimental' treatment - when every expert could tell you this treatment is already well known to be ineffective.

> Then you have to battle the people selling highly marked up snake oil as an 'experimental' treatment - when every expert could tell you this treatment is already well known to be ineffective.

Isn't that easily solved by requiring all experimental drugs and procedures to be provided free of charge with the cost footed solely by the provider?

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#109

Post by jorvi » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 10:12 AM UTC

haldujai wrote: post #92

jorvi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t smokers account for ~99% of cases of small-cell lung cancer, which is by far the worst type to have (very prone to metastasis and grows rapidly)?

Small-cell (SCLC) is definitely very aggressive and more strongly associated with smoking than non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), I'm not sure about 99% but that seems too high. It's fairly rare though, the quoted numbers from SEER are 14% but from a clinical perspective most of us that deal with lung cancer feel that's discordant with our practices and likely an overestimate. In either case, smoker or non-smoker yo…

> I'm not sure about 99% but that seems too high.

I double checked, only 2.5% of SCLC incidences is from non-smokers.

Re: Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half

#110

Post by fulafel » Mon, Jun 05, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

qwytw wrote: post #88

thangalin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Nicotine releases a chemical called dopamine in the same regions of the brain as other addictive drugs. It causes mood-altering changes that make the person temporarily feel good. Inhaled smoke delivers nicotine to the brain within 20 seconds, which makes it very addictive—comparable to opioids, alcohol and cocaine. This "rush" is a major part of the addictive process. 'When the person stops using tobacco, nicotine…

There are other ways to consume nicotine which are much less harmful.

Same for lots of dependence causing substances, effects are greatly varied by delivery mechanism. Eg heroin pills used to be quite common over the counter and weren't considered a hard drug.