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Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

nytimes.com

21–30 of 136 posts

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#21

This seems quite important, and raises questions about whether free market capitalism is actually the best or only model to spur innovation (spoiler: I don't think it is, at all).

Especially when lives are at stake! Market capitalism is probably fine for coffee shops, less so for insulin pumps.

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#22

This seems quite important, and raises questions about whether free market capitalism is actually the best or only model to spur innovation (spoiler: I don't think it is, at all).

What's stopping national health systems from opening their own pharmaceutical branches?

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#23
post #20

> For 1 billion Australian dollars — $766 million U.S. — Australia gets, for five years, all the hep C medicine it can use. What will happen in five years ? If we follow the Netflix model, a lot of what used to be available will simply stop being there because the producer will markup the price significantly. In Netflix case, I don't really care since I can download the movies from other sources anyway, but for drugs…

Ideally competitors drugs will have been brought to market by then, or patents will have expired.

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#24
post #10

Maybe I’m missing something, but discussions on the cost of medicine never seem to question whether using prescription drugs is the right choice to begin with. IMO, it would be far preferable to treat pharmaceuticals as a last resort, focusing instead on preventative medicine and addressing the underlying social issues that cause the medicine to be prescribed in the first place. From the article: Hep C kills more peo…

> Maybe I’m missing something, but discussions on the cost of medicine never seem to question whether using prescription drugs is the right choice to begin with. Because it's pretty darn obvious that once you have Hep C, yes, prescription drugs are the right choice. No one's pumping Hep C drugs into people who don't have Hep C. > Surely the solution to this epidemic is to address the underlying drug problems first? I…

Limited people, time, and resources are why you can't do both at the same time. Developing one solution impedes the development of another

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#25
post #21

This seems quite important, and raises questions about whether free market capitalism is actually the best or only model to spur innovation (spoiler: I don't think it is, at all).

Especially when lives are at stake! Market capitalism is probably fine for coffee shops, less so for insulin pumps.

The part of medicine that's often overlooked is the creation of new medicine. Usually the discussion goes along the lines of "we can make pill X for $0.1 each, but these greedy pharmaceutical companies just want profits". But what they're missing is that without those pharmaceutical companies we probably would have far fewer treatments/drugs in the first place. Doctors and labs need money to run. Investors help with that. If you chase investors out then less research will be done. You won't feel it immediately but after a decade or two it will catch up with us.

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#26
post #10

Maybe I’m missing something, but discussions on the cost of medicine never seem to question whether using prescription drugs is the right choice to begin with. IMO, it would be far preferable to treat pharmaceuticals as a last resort, focusing instead on preventative medicine and addressing the underlying social issues that cause the medicine to be prescribed in the first place. From the article: Hep C kills more peo…

> Maybe I’m missing something, but discussions on the cost of medicine never seem to question whether using prescription drugs is the right choice to begin with. Because it's pretty darn obvious that once you have Hep C, yes, prescription drugs are the right choice. No one's pumping Hep C drugs into people who don't have Hep C. > Surely the solution to this epidemic is to address the underlying drug problems first? I…

[deleted]

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#27

I'll just leave this here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_drug_development#Res...

Not sure if you're posting this as a disagreement with the suggested model, or agreeing.

From the link, it looks like it costs ~$10bn per successful drug, at the top end of that list.

Australia paid $750m for 5 years access.

Australia has ~1/10th the population of the United States. and ~1/3rd the population of the UK.

If just the UK, USA and Australia paid at that same rate (per capita) then they would cover that 10bn average development cost in 5 years.

Seems like it's a good suggestion

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#28

Maybe I’m missing something, but discussions on the cost of medicine never seem to question whether using prescription drugs is the right choice to begin with. IMO, it would be far preferable to treat pharmaceuticals as a last resort, focusing instead on preventative medicine and addressing the underlying social issues that cause the medicine to be prescribed in the first place. From the article: Hep C kills more peo…

Actually an easier solution is providing free needles. No massive society has ever been drug-free AFAIK.

This worked out exceptionally well in my native Portugal. Specially when combined with decriminalization of all drugs.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2009/08/27/treating-not-pun...

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#29

This seems quite important, and raises questions about whether free market capitalism is actually the best or only model to spur innovation (spoiler: I don't think it is, at all).

What's stopping national health systems from opening their own pharmaceutical branches?

don't ask that question, its not allowed :D!

(because governments earn BIG TAXES from these other companies ;)... which pays their wages... see where the rabbit hole leads.. )

Re: Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

#30
post #10

Maybe I’m missing something, but discussions on the cost of medicine never seem to question whether using prescription drugs is the right choice to begin with. IMO, it would be far preferable to treat pharmaceuticals as a last resort, focusing instead on preventative medicine and addressing the underlying social issues that cause the medicine to be prescribed in the first place. From the article: Hep C kills more peo…

> Maybe I’m missing something, but discussions on the cost of medicine never seem to question whether using prescription drugs is the right choice to begin with. Because it's pretty darn obvious that once you have Hep C, yes, prescription drugs are the right choice. No one's pumping Hep C drugs into people who don't have Hep C. > Surely the solution to this epidemic is to address the underlying drug problems first? I…

> No one's pumping Hep C drugs into people who don't have Hep C

However, that is what is being done with HIV drugs under the guise of PrEP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-exposure_prophylaxis

So I wouldn't be so quick to rule it out, specially if Pharma companies see a way to profit out of it.

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