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Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

curingaddiction.substack.com

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Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#161

Post by hackerlight »

Eisenstein wrote: post #157
hackerlight wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'We are only going to make $5billion instead of $15 billion, let's not bother with that one.' Well, yes. If there's a 10% chance of success, these differences matter. Decision making happens at the margin.

How would they know how much one drug would make vs the other while in the research phase?

Private capital doesn't get allocated based on omniscience of future outcomes. It's about approximations of risk to reward in an environment of uncertainty. If you add risk or reduce reward of biotech, you get less private capital in biotech. Investors will allocate in other sectors with better risk to reward.

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#162

Post by PeterisP »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #150
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s saying there is a limited part of the drug market where curing may not be as profitable as maintenance. So they’re trying to find alternate ways of financing that development. For most of pharma, curing is a payday.

> there is a limited part of the drug market where curing may not be as profitable as maintenance That's the same as asking, > "Is curing patients a sustainable business model?" The offense in question is letting profits effect a decision to develop a treatment over a cure. You're literally spelling out the bad thing.

I think it is good and honest for companies to acknowledge that the current incentives work against trying to achieve [SOME_GOOD_RESULT], as in that case the first step towards getting that thing done would be figuring out how can we change the money flow so that there would actually be motivation for companies to direct their R&D efforts towards that.

If the society says to manufacturer "if you do this, you'll get less money from us" that is effectively the society saying "please don't do this". People and governments vote with their wallets about what they want, and if they're "voting wrong" or ineffectively, then they need to change what they pay for, instead of being surprised that they don't get what they disincentivize.

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#164

Post by knappe »

ec109685 wrote: post #159
kgwgk wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it means exactly that: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4968089/ Of course you could still sell the same drug if you get it approved with a different dosage but that is a long and costly process.

That still presupposes a new patent with new dosage. In this case, is there a dosage patent on ozempic’s current dosage? If manufacturers tweak ozempic’s current dose and get a patent, what’s to stop the existing dosage from being made by generics?

I really don't think you're being skeptical enough.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/gaming-us-patent-...

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#165

Post by cpitman »

reaktivo wrote: post #89
cpitman wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently they cannot manufacture enough to cover demand at $1000/ month. Why would the price come down before they can supply current demand?

Are you suggesting they shouldn’t manufacture more?

No, they certainly should, and according to them they are trying to. There is currently an unknown level of demand at the current price point, all we know is that it is probably far more than current supply. There's every reason to believe that they will increase production as fast as possible and still only meet demand over a year from now.

Once demand is met, there starts to be an argument for lowering the price and growing the market. Getting the price down to half the current price is when we start to see health benefits that outweigh the cost of treatment and an obvious win for insurance companies to start covering it for everyone.

But until there is supply, lowering cost just means more people fighting over the same supply, not more people getting access.

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#166

Post by cactusplant7374 »

glp1guide wrote: post #76
cactusplant7374 wrote: post #60

When I took Ozempic I had these side effects: * Low libido and erectile dysfunction * Constipation, diarrhea, and extreme bloating (burping all night long) * Often difficulty sleeping. Waking up a lot. Very restless. We need a drug that doesn't slow digestion but decreases hunger and increases satiety.

These are some interesting side effects -- I'm not sure I've seen low libido very commonly -- have you noticed any other reports/disclosures of that sort of side effect? Note that GLP1 RAs do decrease hunger, and their effects are very much also psychological. It's not simply a digestion slowing pharmacological effect.

> have you noticed any other reports/disclosures of that sort of side effect?

There are a few articles in the news. Nothing substantial yet.

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#167

Post by makeitdouble »

pixl97 wrote: post #158
makeitdouble wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco did that (imagine going for nicotine patches instead of smoking), meth did that, a lot of things do that. It all comes down to the side effects and whether it's worth having the drug around. Up until now we say "no, fuck it" after a few decades of having the thing widely available. My point is wether we should shortcut the cycle and so no _before_ doing the society wide trial and having to fight for decades t…

Tobacco and meth happen to be some of the most highly addictive drugs that exist, that also have the side effect of weight loss. I don't think I've seen anybody tweaking out for a fix of ozempic, though please feel free to inform me if addiction is an actual side effect that I've not heard of.

Ozempic has started to be in wider use very recently, and we know it has a side effects of restraining dopamine release.

My point is we still know very little about long term effects, and in particular about what happens when the brain's reward centers are affected at scale (for a diversity of people) + for years.

Yet we're already going down the path of the "miracle drug" [0] and that freaks me out.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Drug-Crystal-Meth-ebook/dp/B0...

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#168

Post by cactusplant7374 »

glp1guide wrote: post #70
adam_arthur wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy pharmacy compounded semaglutide through online portals, e.g. Ro It's $450/month out of pocket (no insurance coverage) Therefor, there will actually be price competition and we should see pretty cheap prices in the coming years. I'm not sure exactly why pharmacies are free to compound it independently. I guess whatever patents exist on Ozempic/Wegovy etc aren't sufficient to squash competition. The $1000/m…

There are dangers/risks to buying pharmacy compounded semaglutide -- not really a great thing to recommend widely. It's hard to depend on whatever pharmacy people might be able to find locally or through some hopefully trustworthy portal. That said, with China and more notably India entering the GLP1 RA race, there will be much cheaper options very soon, hopefully!

I have bought generics from India but can we really say GLP1 generics in India are better than compounded GLP1 in the US? It seems inconsistent to recommend one over the other.

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#169

Post by doubleg72 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #110
red_trumpet wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they have a patent which makes competition non-existent for the near future?

There are multiple formulations, e.g. Ozempic vs Wegovy.

Ozempic is for diabetics, wegovy is for weight loss

Re: Ozempic will disrupt big tobacco, candy companies, and alcohol brands

#170

Post by cactusplant7374 »

pixl97 wrote: post #158
makeitdouble wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco did that (imagine going for nicotine patches instead of smoking), meth did that, a lot of things do that. It all comes down to the side effects and whether it's worth having the drug around. Up until now we say "no, fuck it" after a few decades of having the thing widely available. My point is wether we should shortcut the cycle and so no _before_ doing the society wide trial and having to fight for decades t…

Tobacco and meth happen to be some of the most highly addictive drugs that exist, that also have the side effect of weight loss. I don't think I've seen anybody tweaking out for a fix of ozempic, though please feel free to inform me if addiction is an actual side effect that I've not heard of.

Withdrawal for tobacco is basically mild discomfort. It can't be in the same class as drugs that cause seizures, profuse sweating, and death upon immediate cessation.
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