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Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

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Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#131

Post by vivekd »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #130
geekuillaume wrote: post #129

There is some scrutiny. Abstract: The London team also gave the children standard chemotherapy, they failed to show the cell treatment actually cured the kids. “There is a hint of efficacy but no proof,” says Stephan Grupp, director of cancer immunotherapy at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who collaborates with Novartis. “It would be great if it works, but that just hasn’t been shown yet.”

The odd thing: does standard chemo ever totally cure anybody? If not, then what did cure them, if not the new treatment?

Yes, chemotherapy can and has cured cancer.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#132

Post by JoeAltmaier »

vivekd wrote: post #131
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The odd thing: does standard chemo ever totally cure anybody? If not, then what did cure them, if not the new treatment?

Yes, chemotherapy can and has cured cancer.

Not like this as I understand it - remission isn't the same thing as "zero cancer cells detectable" - total eradication of the disease.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#133

Post by vkou »

refurb wrote: post #84
vkou wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't take into account marketing costs, which also must be recuperated in the drug's price, and are much bigger then the R&D costs...

Nobody invests in marketing unless the ROI is >100%. The marketing activity funds itself unless somebody screwed up.

Yes, of course. However, consider this dillema.

You can sell 1 million pills, at a cost of $5 each. That's a 5 million profit. Or, you could spend 80 million in marketing, and sell 2 million pills, at the cost of $43 each. That's a 6 million profit.

This is absolutely not beneficial to the first million customers.

Also, consider that the United States is the only country in the world that allows direct-to-customer medical marketing... Which is one of the reasons why the cost of healthcare is so damn high.

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#134

Post by vivekd »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #132
vivekd wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, chemotherapy can and has cured cancer.

Not like this as I understand it - remission isn't the same thing as "zero cancer cells detectable" - total eradication of the disease.

It can completely cure the cancer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotherapy#Efficacy

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#135

Post by omegaworks »

gozur88 wrote: post #117
omegaworks wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug company can walk away from the negotiation. Either party can say no. That's the difference between coercion and negotiation.

The difference is governments don't have competition. If you play hardball with a drug company in the US, one of the reasons they can walk away is there are other insurance companys to which they can sell their drugs. And insurance companies can't throw drug company officers in jail.

> The difference is governments don't have competition.

There are many governments in the world. If one government plays hardball with a drug company, drug company can go find a different government, or negotiate with private insurers in that same country. Yes, private insurers exist even in countries that provide basic healthcare to all their citizens. [0]

> And insurance companies can't throw drug company officers in jail.

Show me where this has happened. This scaremongering and black-ops has nothing to do with the practice of negotiating price. There are many people that wish Martin Shkreli went to jail for gouging AIDS patients, but that's not happening.

0. http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/01/16/the-awkward-wor...

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#136

Post by refurb »

vkou wrote: post #133
refurb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody invests in marketing unless the ROI is >100%. The marketing activity funds itself unless somebody screwed up.

Yes, of course. However, consider this dillema. You can sell 1 million pills, at a cost of $5 each. That's a 5 million profit. Or, you could spend 80 million in marketing, and sell 2 million pills, at the cost of $43 each. That's a 6 million profit. This is absolutely not beneficial to the first million customers. Also, consider that the United States is the only country in the world that allows direct-to-customer me…

This is absolutely not beneficial to the first million customers.

Drug companies don't increase the price to pay for marketing. Prices are set based on what the market can bear. A small drug company that decides not to spend a lot on marketing is going to charge the same as a big company that does spend on marketing.

How the math works is as follows:

$5/pill; 1 million pills sold with no marketing = $5M profit

$5/pill; 2 million pills sold with $3M in marketing spend = $7M in profit (66% ROI on marketing spend).

Re: Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish

#137

Post by sjg007 »

gregshap wrote: post #128
sjg007 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Anyone with cancer should go to a high volume academic and designated cancer center. The hospital should also rate high in us news and reports and score top marks in nurses, safety and cleanliness. But you can't deviate from FDA guidelines except in very exceptional cases.

That was my experience of variability for a family member treated within a particular high volume academic hospital and designated cancer center. But my point is in response to the original parent comment. If you give treatment Y at one top hospital and your control group is everyone getting treatment X at all the other top hospitals, you still have basically anecdotal data. If I'm very sick and the standard treatmen…

They do run multi center clinical trials... but yes if your current treatment doesn't work or is likely out of date then you should seek another treatment option (usually a phase 1 or 2 trial)
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