Hospitals and universities repurposing drugs at lower cost

Post by notRobot » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 12:41 PM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #12

jawns wrote: post #8

I have been a supporter of Cures Within Reach, a nonprofit that focuses on repurposing drugs, especially for rare diseases. https://www.cureswithinreach.org They have funded some important repurposed-drug studies for Huntingtons Disease, which runs in my family. For a disease like this, it's never going to make sense for major pharmaceutical companies to invest the effort to develop entirely new drugs, but by repurpo…

I'm on my cell phone and I couldn't figure out what diseases can be treated on the site. I'd say it's donor focused and not patient focused

Post by Geeek » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 12:47 PM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #22

shevy-java wrote: post #20

The prices of drugs in the USA are especially high. This is interesting because the USA claims to pursue a maximum capitalistic society - but if this were the case, you'd have competition in a free market. But you don't have that. You have a cartel (or rather more than one). A pure capitalistic society works on assumptions that are not real. People are often cheaters. This would have to be taken into account. But whe…

Look at the development of price and quality of something that is outside the regulated medical system, like eg Lasik, and everything within that system. Its like night and day. If we had proper competition and price discovery, things would be much better.

Post by wk_end » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 12:48 PM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #20

The prices of drugs in the USA are especially high. This is interesting because the USA claims to pursue a maximum capitalistic society - but if this were the case, you'd have competition in a free market. But you don't have that. You have a cartel (or rather more than one). A pure capitalistic society works on assumptions that are not real. People are often cheaters. This would have to be taken into account. But whe…

  U.S. prices for brand-name originator drugs were 422 percent of prices in
  comparison countries, while U.S. unbranded generics, which we found account for 90
  percent of U.S. prescription volume, were on average cheaper at 67 percent of
  prices in comparison countries, where on average only 41 percent of prescription
  volume is for unbranded generics.

Post by vidarh » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 12:50 PM UTC

oezi wrote: post #19

vidarh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article points out that it is typically after patent expiry that the universities and hospitals start looking at repurposing.

The patents aren't hindering off-label use. The hinder commercial exploitation by others.

Post by forgetfreeman » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 12:56 PM UTC

oezi wrote: post #18

intrasight wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There tens of millions of people being treated off-label.

The doctors are assuming liability or let the patient sign waivers, which I guess is fine. But the lack of a pathway prevents a lot of commercial possibilities. For instance it is almost impossible to build a business around supporting off-label use cases (for instance selling necessary accessories).