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The million-dollar drug (2018)

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Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#51

Post by inter_netuser »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #29
stefan_ wrote: post #16

Never mind non-practicing entities for software patents, but surely for patents on medicine keeping them valid when no one is making any is entirely bogus and not deserving of legal protection?

If you invalidate people’s patents for trying to sell their drug at a price high enough to recover R&D costs, they’ll just stop doing R&D for any drugs that will have niche target populations.

India has been doing this for decades. Somehow the global pharmaceutical industry didn't collapse despite of Indian drugs being exported for very cheap.

It's just a lie, one of very many we tell ourselves.

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#52

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

d136o wrote: post #12

It seems to me that it’s not just the price of a single treatment that is too high, but also that the patients are fully recovered and don’t have to pay a recurring annual subscription fee to live normal lives. Or is that too cynical?

Article explicitly mentions price is high because there are no recurring costs, so it actually isn't more expensive than other treatments that may cost hundreds of thousands every year.

Iirc economists have estimated that a human life is valued around 3M$ by society (a couple of years ago, probably higher now), the price doesn't necessarily seem too high.

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#53

Post by shmerl »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #35
shmerl wrote: post #28

Price should be based on cost of production, not on how often the drug is needed. So stupid not to make it available because someone was crazy to price it that high.

A drug with high cost of production that’s not needed very often will cost a lot of money per dose. The article mentions that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on R&D and clinical trials, and maybe a couple thousand people in the first world have this disorder. Development costs have to be recouped entirely off of first world sales, since the rest of the world isn’t going to ever pay any appreciable amount o…

How much does it cost now, after all the R&D and tests are completed? I doubt they need millions to actually produce the drug once they know how to and that it works. So they basically prefer not to produce it at all, than to sell it at affordable prices. It makes no sense to me.

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#54

Post by roenxi »

jagger27 wrote: post #15

I can’t imagine how hard it must be for the dozens of people out there suffering from this rare ailment knowing a perfect cure/treatment is possible but not worth it for the shareholders.

The shareholders are doing as much as the rest of us to help those dozens of people. It isn't fair to cast the blame on them.

The real culprit here is the system of laws and controls that forbid anyone else from stepping in to fill the hole they've left. The regulations and regulators deserve to be held up as the problem here. If it wasn't illegal to compete then maybe someone would. Maybe even one of the people who need the drug.

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#55

Post by danielfoster »

jagger27 wrote: post #15

I can’t imagine how hard it must be for the dozens of people out there suffering from this rare ailment knowing a perfect cure/treatment is possible but not worth it for the shareholders.

It looks like it wasn’t worth it for the EMA and insurance companies.

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#56

Post by ak39 »

Fascinating story and the use of virus to repair genetic anomalies. What other uses can there be of similar conditions? And why aren't we hearing more of it (if the approach is viable)?

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#57

Post by aqme28 »

roenxi wrote: post #54
jagger27 wrote: post #15

I can’t imagine how hard it must be for the dozens of people out there suffering from this rare ailment knowing a perfect cure/treatment is possible but not worth it for the shareholders.

The shareholders are doing as much as the rest of us to help those dozens of people. It isn't fair to cast the blame on them. The real culprit here is the system of laws and controls that forbid anyone else from stepping in to fill the hole they've left. The regulations and regulators deserve to be held up as the problem here. If it wasn't illegal to compete then maybe someone would. Maybe even one of the people who…

So then why doesn't the company release the patent to the public?

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#59

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #39

It doesn't make for a very compelling news story, but the real reason why Glybera failed is because it's not that great of a drug and it loses effect over time and you can't redose with the same AAV vector. They also relied a surrogate endpoint versus actual clinical measures (as those were to confounded by the small sample size and patient variability). It just barely got approved by the EMA and based on feedback th…

[deleted]

Re: The million-dollar drug (2018)

#60

Post by buryat »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #42
dodobirdlord wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a saying that one should not throw good money after bad, in this case it would seem they are refusing good money because it won't cover the bad. They are a drug development company, marketing their drugs to national government health services and private insurance companies. This is an iterative game, in game theory terms. Caving and selling at a loss just guarantees that counterparties will refuse to buy a…

>In the years since they refused the $1M price tag in an attempt to drive a hard bargain, the national governments and private insurance companies have no doubt spent more than $1M per patient they refused to buy a dose for. I wouldn't make the assumption on that, given the disease is potentially deadly. I would more likely make the assumption that the private insurance companies especially did the math and figured t…

next question would be why governments themselves don't develop those drugs. I'm for the free market however bad it's in this case, unfortunately/fortunately it's the best instrument we got
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