51–60 of 114 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It typically costs ~$2B to develop a new drug. Taxpayer contributions are practically negligible.
How much did the Fed spend buying Gilead's bonds? And how much more/less effective is Remdesivir compared to the generic Dexamethasone anti-inflammatory?
American taxpayers contributed at least $70m to the development of this drug[0] and our reward is to be gouged by Gilead. It's the exact same shit they've pulled with Truvada[1] and it's grotesque. [0]: https://www.citizen.org/article/the-real-story-of-remdesivir... [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/opinion/prep-hiv-aids-dru...
All this said, Pharma has abused its position and pricing power. Remdesivir is an ok but not amazing drug, and pricing it this high is bad policy. Part of what they are doing is protecting their flank. Pricing it too low would cause people to say, “see! You CAN price drugs low, let’s make you price other things lower.” This is immoral reasoning but it’s part of the logic.
Drug pricing is super complicated, it’s worth understanding more deeply. Remdesivir is a weird case, and should be viewed in a larger context. See this post as a great place to start with further links within:
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/12/11/ar...
(Conflict declaration: I founded a biotech)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It typically costs ~$2B to develop a new drug. Taxpayer contributions are practically negligible.
Has anyone checked the $2B or is this what pharma tells?
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Very few people have private health care in Europe, at least in the UK - they are either comparatively very rich or have a job that provides it (again, very rare and probably a job that pays very well to begin with). You will see a lot of buying power from free health care providers as they represent tens-hundreds of millions of people - they will most likely pass on a price gouging drug in favour for others. They wo…
The most relevant industry to this board (IT) usually provide private healthcare though. I’ve had BUPA from work since I graduated. Granted this is across only two jobs but when I’ve been applying for jobs in the past private health has always been one of the perks Maybe it’s different in the start up world but larger companies all seem to offer private health insurance.
VC backed companies will sell you private health insurance as a perk. It is rarely useful. I suspect it is a way of funnelling money at low rates of tax to the VC's other holdings in at least one case, but have no proof. It certainly funds the privatisation agenda at low cost to the investor, though.
Seniority is signified through leadership or contracting. The latter you can get private insurance as a perk through your own company, but again, it is useless.
Most permanent non-lead roles I've had that have been more conventional haven't had it, though.
Scenario A: There's a huge pandemic and massive demand, but the drug can only be sold at cost, so we break even.
Scenario B: The drug fails clinical trials. We lose a bunch of money.
Scenario C: The drug works, but no pandemic ever happens. We lose a bunch of money.
.... and then no one will develop antivirals, because on average, you can only come out behind.
As to why the government can't do everything itself, I'll quote Paul Graham on venture investing, which (like drug development) is a highly technical, winner-take-all business where most projects fail:
"Why not just have the government, or some large almost-government organization like Fannie Mae, do the venture investing instead of private funds?
I'll tell you why that wouldn't work. Because then you're asking government or almost-government employees to do the one thing they are least able to do: take risks.
As anyone who has worked for the government knows, the important thing is not to make the right choices, but to make choices that can be justified later if they fail. If there is a safe option, that's the one a bureaucrat will choose. But that is exactly the wrong way to do venture investing. The nature of the business means that you want to make terribly risky choices, if the upside looks good enough."
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In the UK we pay a fraction of what companies in the US do. See also, our nightmarish trade negotiations with the US: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/01/nhs-drugs-b... Not a scholarly article, intentionally. I wanted to give a flavour of the existential (to our health system) nature of the problem of US style drug pricing. There's also the small matter of pricing varying highly by country. Another more…
Europe is one of the primary reasons US drug pricing is so messed up. Many European countries negotiate drug pricing on cost to manufacturer (practically nothing) with a negotiated slim profit margin. Then the drug companies just offload the rest of the R&D cost onto the US consumer. But, almost the entire cost of a drug is in the R&D. Imagine if the rest of the world only paid for CPUs based on the per unit cost of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very few people have private health care in Europe, at least in the UK - they are either comparatively very rich or have a job that provides it (again, very rare and probably a job that pays very well to begin with). You will see a lot of buying power from free health care providers as they represent tens-hundreds of millions of people - they will most likely pass on a price gouging drug in favour for others. They wo…
The most relevant industry to this board (IT) usually provide private healthcare though. I’ve had BUPA from work since I graduated. Granted this is across only two jobs but when I’ve been applying for jobs in the past private health has always been one of the perks Maybe it’s different in the start up world but larger companies all seem to offer private health insurance.
For what I read about USA, in HN and in other places, I suspect Americans would be surprised too. Those private plans have a very hard competitor in the public system, so, somehow, at least in my area, they manage to be pretty affordable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very few people have private health care in Europe, at least in the UK - they are either comparatively very rich or have a job that provides it (again, very rare and probably a job that pays very well to begin with). You will see a lot of buying power from free health care providers as they represent tens-hundreds of millions of people - they will most likely pass on a price gouging drug in favour for others. They wo…
The most relevant industry to this board (IT) usually provide private healthcare though. I’ve had BUPA from work since I graduated. Granted this is across only two jobs but when I’ve been applying for jobs in the past private health has always been one of the perks Maybe it’s different in the start up world but larger companies all seem to offer private health insurance.
I don't really understand the outrage. Surely, the price is only too high in the event that they can't sell their product? It's a business, not a charity. Other companies will be looking hungrily at these earnings and invest in developing their own antivirals---which is exactly the desired outcome. Sure, it would be great to have this drug available to everyone right here, right now, for cheap. But investing on those…