Another 999 steps to go...
Dear Downvoter, Am I wrong?
Your tone is misplaced. I'm an oncologist, and with no conflicts of interest I can assure you these drugs are a bona fide breakthrough.
Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
21–30 of 74 posts
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well worth the $100k I would say.
Pretty sure that I speak for most humans when I say that a $100k medical treatment might as well be a $100m treatment. There's some quote like "any quantitative value is qualitative at sufficient scale". $10,000 is the most expensive thing I've ever purchased--and I'm still paying it off.
"Quantity has a quality all of its own." Attributed to Stalin but perhaps a misattribution.
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#23The phrase "cure for cancer" does a disservice in general, and even more clearly so on a site like HN where people generally speak precisely. (This is not intended for the person who posted the article - I know that HN guidelines recommend keeping the original title.) Inevitably side-discussions come up about whether something is truly a cure and then we get into discussions of the wording (I am currently guilty of this).
The novel therapies for melanoma are by no means curative in general, but they add a tremendous amount (relative to the overall life expectancy) and should rightly be heralded (and their cost debated).
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#24"Cancer" is a word that describes any disease that is the result of uncontrolled growth of your own cells. However, there are so many types of cancer cells and the treatment for each so different that saying we've "cured cancer" is a prime reason why the public doesn't understand or trust these miracle breakthroughs.
That being said, these PD-1 inhibitors are a huge breakthrough for any type of cancer that uses this mechanism to evade the immune system. One of the hallmarks of cancer cell growth is their ability to evade the immune system. PD-1 (programmed cell death 1) is a receptor on immune cells like T cells that tells these immune cells to "stand down"/go inactive. Some types of cancer secrete molecules that activate this receptor, inhibiting the immune cells. Drugs like Nivolumab block these receptors, keeping the immune cells active, allowing them to attack cancer cells when they encounter them.
Metastisis (cancer cells spreading around the body) is what kills cancer patients, and drug strategies that can keep this from happening are key to keeping people alive. (Re-)activating the immune system against the cancer cells is a great strategy that's had some recent breakthroughs. Another recent breakthrough method, called CAR-T cell therapy (chimeric antigen receptor t-cells) also activates the immune system against cancer. In that case, they take immune cells out of the cancer patients body, use gene therapy to inject genetic material needed by the cells to recognize cancer cells, then grow those cell and re-inject them back to the body. This has been wildly successful in certain types of cancer, like certain leukemias and lymphomas, and may be successful for other types. Here is a nice article that covers these general strategies for those interested: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/04/20/immune-...
There have been a lot of breakthroughs recently. If we keep pushing like this we'll someday soon be fortunate enough to be legitimately surprised when a friend or family member dies of cancer, and many other diseases.
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#25Some context. One of the drugs in the combination Ipillimumab has been used for a while now, and seems to produce long term survival in about 10% of patients with incurable melanoma. Some of these patients seem effectively cured, having survived 7 years or more without any other treatment. It seems likely that combination therapy will produce a better rate of effective cure. This is a pretty big deal, because advance…
>Cost effectiveness... well ipillimumab costs 100k a year for 4 doses, and nivolumab is probably going to cost another 100k at least on top of that, and is generally continued indefinitely, and the medication to turn off overly vigorous immune responses can also be expensive...
I cannot imagine a chemical process to create those drugs that justifies the prices mentioned.
Is the price at least subsidising the costs of research, or is it an arbitrary price set by the drug company because "it can"?
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#26Some context. One of the drugs in the combination Ipillimumab has been used for a while now, and seems to produce long term survival in about 10% of patients with incurable melanoma. Some of these patients seem effectively cured, having survived 7 years or more without any other treatment. It seems likely that combination therapy will produce a better rate of effective cure. This is a pretty big deal, because advance…
> Cost effectiveness... well ipillimumab costs 100k a year for 4 doses, and nivolumab is probably going to cost another 100k at least on top of that, and is generally continued indefinitely, and the medication to turn off overly vigorous immune responses can also be expensive... I cannot imagine a chemical process to create those drugs that justifies the prices mentioned. Is the price at least subsidising the costs o…
Little of column A, little of column B. The research is expensive. But living is effectively priceless.
There are solutions to this, and countries that are not mine will probably avail themselves of them sooner or later.
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Cost effectiveness... well ipillimumab costs 100k a year for 4 doses, and nivolumab is probably going to cost another 100k at least on top of that, and is generally continued indefinitely, and the medication to turn off overly vigorous immune responses can also be expensive... I cannot imagine a chemical process to create those drugs that justifies the prices mentioned. Is the price at least subsidising the costs o…
Little of column A, little of column B. The research is expensive. But living is effectively priceless. There are solutions to this, and countries that are not mine will probably avail themselves of them sooner or later.
Aren't the prices for these drugs so high because they basically have to be made by hand? Since these small drug companies don't have any real manufacturing capabilities.
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Little of column A, little of column B. The research is expensive. But living is effectively priceless. There are solutions to this, and countries that are not mine will probably avail themselves of them sooner or later.
Aren't the prices for these drugs so high because they basically have to be made by hand? Since these small drug companies don't have any real manufacturing capabilities.
ipilimumab, *-umab; hUman Monoclonal Ab (antibody)
These aren't cheap to mass produce.
Edit: Not the best source I could find, but this cites costs (not at scale) :
http://www.immunochemistry.com/services/antibody-development
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't the prices for these drugs so high because they basically have to be made by hand? Since these small drug companies don't have any real manufacturing capabilities.
ipilimumab, *-umab; hUman Monoclonal Ab (antibody) These aren't cheap to mass produce. Edit: Not the best source I could find, but this cites costs (not at scale) : http://www.immunochemistry.com/services/antibody-development
>These aren't cheap to mass produce.
Even still, $25k/pill seems steep. That's roughly 10x the cost of pure plutonium.
Re: Cure for cancer one step closer after 'spectacular' breakthrough
#30as someone who lost a friend last year to skin cancer and has a work colleague with end-stage breast cancer that has spread to her bones - bring it on.
as someone working in life sciences - years off, even with FDA fast track. the incentive to reap billions is justified, this is far more important than a fucking social sharing app - it better be more profitable. the best minds should work on a cure for cancer not bullshit timewasters.