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Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

arstechnica.com

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Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#181

Post by tgb »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #171
brann0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we agree medicine cannot be managed as a business, right? It's ok if healthcare losses money, in fact it should be ok for all public sevices to operate and not being profitable.

If the US were to make all drug R&D a public service they'd have to basically increase the current NIH budget from ~$30B to probably $150B It may be nice in theory to have government manage drug R&D, but it is not practical. It's simply too expensive

It's not politically practical, but why would you expect that paying for the stuff we already pay for is too expensive?

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#182

Post by Clubber »

pjc50 wrote: post #174
aaavl2821 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US were to make all drug R&D a public service they'd have to basically increase the current NIH budget from ~$30B to probably $150B It may be nice in theory to have government manage drug R&D, but it is not practical. It's simply too expensive

.. or a fifth of the military budget. "It's not practical of the US to maintain the most expensive military in the world, it's simply too expensive" said nobody in Congress ever.

Eisenhower's warning of the military-industrial complex is still very much valid, nearly 60 years later.

Ike then counseled American citizens to be vigilant in monitoring the military-industrial complex.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns...

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#183

Post by pjc50 »

TomK32 wrote: post #120
brann0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we agree medicine cannot be managed as a business, right? It's ok if healthcare losses money, in fact it should be ok for all public sevices to operate and not being profitable.

They are profitable on the bigger scale of a national economy. Sadly no one give a damn about that these days. In Germany we have the studies Betriebswirtschaft (business) and Volkswirtschaft (national economy) and the latter is loosing vital ground in politics. It gets worse if you look to the UK where a of lot public services are handed to companies, for example the merger of all social benefits Universal Credit is…

"Universal Credit" is a horrendous scheme that manages to combine (malicious) ignorance of the needs of its beneficiaries with ignorance of how to run a large software project.

The idea sounds great on paper - there are a lot of different benefits, why not reduce duplication by merging them into one scheme then only asking for personal information once - but it ignores cashflow. People can be left without money to live on for weeks. It's also a classic "big bang" project which just piles the requirements of existing systems together, and hands them to one of the traditional government crony contractors: Accenture, HP and IBM. At least it didn't involve Serco.

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#184

Post by contravariant »

brann0 wrote: post #54
PeterStuer wrote: post #24

The 'ideal' drug from a business point of view not only not cures the patient long term, it offer a short term mitigation while increasing the risk on relapse and thus future recurring consumption of the treatment. At the same time it can be IP protected to block alternatives and has an insured third party collective payment coverage to guard against the treated running out of funds to afford the perpetual dependency…

So we agree medicine cannot be managed as a business, right? It's ok if healthcare losses money, in fact it should be ok for all public sevices to operate and not being profitable.

Well, it's not like you couldn't make money by inventing an ideal cure, you just can't do so sustainably, but for better or worse sustainability has never been a particularly high priority for businesses.

I think patents make any kind of free market approach difficult if not impossible, but it's not as if there's no monetary incentive to invent the 'best' cure.

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#185

Post by jrobn »

jamroom wrote: post #176
aaavl2821 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US were to make all drug R&D a public service they'd have to basically increase the current NIH budget from ~$30B to probably $150B It may be nice in theory to have government manage drug R&D, but it is not practical. It's simply too expensive

It's not too expensive - the US can easily afford $150B. We just have to decide that it's a priority and make it happen. Each year we some how find almost a trillion dollars for defense (more if you include "black budget") and no one blinks an eye.

I think the US is still stuck in the Cold War mentality of making military spending an “untouchable” cut. Meanwhile country infrastructure is falling apart and our equality gap is unprecedented. Sounds a lot like the USSR.

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#188

Post by Bromskloss »

PeterStuer wrote: post #24

The 'ideal' drug from a business point of view not only not cures the patient long term, it offer a short term mitigation while increasing the risk on relapse and thus future recurring consumption of the treatment. At the same time it can be IP protected to block alternatives and has an insured third party collective payment coverage to guard against the treated running out of funds to afford the perpetual dependency…

What if a competitor shows up and can demonstrate that their treatment is better, for example that it does not lead to relapses?

Re: Goldman Sachs questions whether curing patients is a sustainable business model

#189

Post by howard941 »

refurb wrote: post #158
arnoooooo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most R&D, in the US as elsewhere, make massive use of public funds.

No, that's not true. Private R&D is almost 10x what public R&D is, at least in biotech.

Including the R&D tax credit?
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