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Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

nytimes.com

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Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#31

Post by wiz21c »

Clubber wrote: post #27
danieltillett wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and your solution is what?

Government needs to subsidize research and put price caps on resulting drugs. Fair market isn't possible with inelastic demand. That's where the fuck you comes from. Someone has cancer and their kids are wanting the treatment (of course, it's false hope, we don't want daddy to die) without realizing what they are asking for (lifelong debt). So in addition to cancer, the patient has to grapple with that shit. Anyone w…

I don't know shit, but I think it's not your country only... I've already wrote it but 15 years ago at Johnson&Johnson, I remember that on every desk, there was the motto of the company : "we work for the good of our patients and shareholders" (maybe not the exact wording, I think I recall the idea quite vividly). (noticed it was an "and" not a "then")

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#32

Post by keepper »

Odd they don't mention the cuban work on this field.

"Researchers with Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology have developed and approved an immunologic cancer therapy that improves survivability for certain types of cancers in some cases; as of January 2017, the drug has begun clinical trials for the treatment in the United States."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/09/cuba-ha...

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#33

Post by danieltillett »

Clubber wrote: post #27
danieltillett wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and your solution is what?

Government needs to subsidize research and put price caps on resulting drugs. Fair market isn't possible with inelastic demand. That's where the fuck you comes from. Someone has cancer and their kids are wanting the treatment (of course, it's false hope, we don't want daddy to die) without realizing what they are asking for (lifelong debt). So in addition to cancer, the patient has to grapple with that shit. Anyone w…

Well governments do subsidise research quite a lot (NIH et al).

Putting caps on prices without doing something about research costs is just going to kill research. All the big pharma companies are laying off scientist every week because even with uncapped prices the returns are so low that it is not worth spending the money to develop new drugs.

A more productive approach might be to look into why drug development has become so expensive. It is certainly not because pharma companies have suddenly become greedier.

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#34

Post by Clubber »

danieltillett wrote: post #33
Clubber wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government needs to subsidize research and put price caps on resulting drugs. Fair market isn't possible with inelastic demand. That's where the fuck you comes from. Someone has cancer and their kids are wanting the treatment (of course, it's false hope, we don't want daddy to die) without realizing what they are asking for (lifelong debt). So in addition to cancer, the patient has to grapple with that shit. Anyone w…

Well governments do subsidise research quite a lot (NIH et al). Putting caps on prices without doing something about research costs is just going to kill research. All the big pharma companies are laying off scientist every week because even with uncapped prices the returns are so low that it is not worth spending the money to develop new drugs. A more productive approach might be to look into why drug development ha…

>All the big pharma companies are laying off scientist every week because even with uncapped prices the returns are so low that it is not worth spending the money to develop new drugs.

You paint such a sad, desperate picture, but based on their numbers, it sounds like they are doing it to save a buck. Look at those profit margins. 10-43 percent on billions of investment. I should be so lucky.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

Did you know the US government isn't allowed to negotiate drug prices for medicare and medicaid? They (we) just pay whatever the companies want to charge.

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#35

Post by danieltillett »

Clubber wrote: post #34
danieltillett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well governments do subsidise research quite a lot (NIH et al). Putting caps on prices without doing something about research costs is just going to kill research. All the big pharma companies are laying off scientist every week because even with uncapped prices the returns are so low that it is not worth spending the money to develop new drugs. A more productive approach might be to look into why drug development ha…

>All the big pharma companies are laying off scientist every week because even with uncapped prices the returns are so low that it is not worth spending the money to develop new drugs. You paint such a sad, desperate picture, but based on their numbers, it sounds like they are doing it to save a buck. Look at those profit margins. 10-43 percent on billions of investment. I should be so lucky. http://www.bbc.com/news/…

Yes they are making lots of money by killing their research pipeline and laying off their scientists. The reason they are doing this is they can't justify spending the money given the returns on offer.

I am no defender of pharma companies, but they are doing exactly what the economic incentives encourage them to do. We need to change the incentives, not just rant about high prices and greed.

Edit. Yes I know that the US government is not allowed to negotiate with drug companies over pricing (it is a little more complex than this in practice), but even with pricing uncapped the profit margins don't justify them spending more on R&D.

We agree on the problem, just disagree on the solution. You should also read the part two of the article you quoted [0]. Unfortunately all the solutions provided are little more than a sugar pill for the real problem - R&D costs.

0. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29659537

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#36

Post by maxerickson »

Clubber wrote: post #34
danieltillett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well governments do subsidise research quite a lot (NIH et al). Putting caps on prices without doing something about research costs is just going to kill research. All the big pharma companies are laying off scientist every week because even with uncapped prices the returns are so low that it is not worth spending the money to develop new drugs. A more productive approach might be to look into why drug development ha…

>All the big pharma companies are laying off scientist every week because even with uncapped prices the returns are so low that it is not worth spending the money to develop new drugs. You paint such a sad, desperate picture, but based on their numbers, it sounds like they are doing it to save a buck. Look at those profit margins. 10-43 percent on billions of investment. I should be so lucky. http://www.bbc.com/news/…

Medicare drug prices are negotiated by the private companies that administer most of the drug coverage.

There is a clause in the law establishing Part D that says the government can't interfere with those negotiations, but this is different than the prices not being negotiated at all.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheet...

Medicaid prices aren't negotiated, but the government dictates that they get near the lowest prices the manufacturer sells the drug for.

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#37

Post by schappim »

My Father is currently on a trial in Australia which combines Immune Therapy with traditional chemo treatment. The results can only be described as a miracle. He has gone from being inoperable stage IV melanoma (with the disease first being spotted in his lung, not his skin) to showing next to no evidence of the disease.

When I read many medical studies in the media, they often sound too good to be true. In this instance it is the real deal.

I hope access to this treatment becomes readily available for the rest of the public.

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#38

Post by aantix »

Retric wrote: post #23
aantix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PhDs that have dedicated their lives to specializing in specific cancers, failed drugs, research that leads nowhere, failed clinical trials because of XYZ. It's all highly specialized. And if done with a rigorous protocol, it's all expensive. You're not doing a lifetime of cancer research in hopes that you earn an average salary. For the company, if you finally get somewhere with a drug that is affective, you have to…

Most US medical research is highly dependent of public funding. Company's are only interested once the risks drop enough and the rewards are very near. Looking at just research and eliminating patent dogging efforts, Drug companies don't pay for nearly as much research as you might think.

>One study assessed both capitalized and out-of-pocket costs as about US$1.8 billion and $870 million, respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_drug_development

These numbers certainly aren't risk-free. Even if the company has 10 billion in cash, how many potential research leads can they bring to market? Not many.

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#39

Post by vibrio »

Retric wrote: post #23
aantix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PhDs that have dedicated their lives to specializing in specific cancers, failed drugs, research that leads nowhere, failed clinical trials because of XYZ. It's all highly specialized. And if done with a rigorous protocol, it's all expensive. You're not doing a lifetime of cancer research in hopes that you earn an average salary. For the company, if you finally get somewhere with a drug that is affective, you have to…

Most US medical research is highly dependent of public funding. Company's are only interested once the risks drop enough and the rewards are very near. Looking at just research and eliminating patent dogging efforts, Drug companies don't pay for nearly as much research as you might think.

I agree that pubic funding is an essential foundation for this industry, but disagree that the risk drops before industry gets a hold of technology. Large clinical studies are crazy expensive for many good and many bad reasons, and many of them will fail giving zero ROI. I agree that much of Pharma, (especially, but not only, some very bad actors) spend more on IP Attys and Commercial efforts than R&D, and that hurts me to watch. Academia doesn't do the research that is required to get drugs to people--who does PK and ADME studies on hundreds of animals? No one excpet industry does the detailed manufacturing process development and critical parameter work required to support approvals, especially in biologics. Yes, many drug companies need to be fixed (and some outright eliminated), but the industry does serve a purpose.

Re: Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer with Immune Therapy

#40

Post by aaavl2821 »

kuwze wrote: post #9

I remember reading this recent Financial Times article[0] about how China is innovating in the area of providing immunotherapy and other breakthrough treatments. [0]: https://outline.com/tdDNdd [1 non-outlined link]: https://www.ft.com/content/30b5a944-3b57-11e8-b9f9-de94fa33a...

Right now China is playing fast-follower in general with this work, but rapidly becoming more innovative.

There are quite a few Chinese companies developing their own PD 1, PD L1 and CTLA4 inhibitors (these are the first gen immunotherapy treatments), and a lot of innovation in CAR-T cell therapy (first approved products of this type were US and European, Novartis and KITE pharma). There is less regulation of cell therapy in China, so potential for some breakthroughs.

A company called Legend Biotech in China surprised the biopharma world at a major confreence last year with breakthrough work with a cell therapy targeting BCMA.

However, the amount of US and EU investmnet in immuno-oncology is still greater than in China

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