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USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

theguardian.com

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Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#71

Post by rayiner »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #44
bmmayer1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That said, patent restrictions are arguably the only reason the drug exists in the first place. So let's not get out over our skis here.

Remdesivir was developed with public funds. Shouldn't the fact that the public shouldered the risk of development be factored into any of this? https://www.uab.edu/news/health/item/11082-investigational-c...

Here on HN, we should easily be able to see through this trope. The government made a $37.5 million grant to study a range of drugs. How much equity should the government get for what basically amounts to seed funding for the $1 billion cost of bringing a drug to market? (Account for dilution and the fact that the “investor” here doesn’t put more money into subsequent funding rounds.)

Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#72

Post by watwut »

pmontra wrote: post #70

According to the article 500,000 doses are the production of July, and 90% of August and September. Three full months would be 500,000 / 2.80 * 3 = 535,714 doses. A full treatment is made of six doses. There are 89,285 treatments in there. Less than 30,000 per month. Too bad for the rest of the world that all of them will happen in the USA but they are way too few to matter globally. Split them proportionally with th…

> Better, local production, which I understand is neither quick nor easy.

There is patent. So, it is not legal unless countries change patent law.

Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#73

Post by jjk166 »

newsbinator wrote: post #52
whymauri wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, it's possible millions will not die in this case because remdisivir is most likely a quality-of-life therapeutic for people in the recovery phase. Your intuition is real though and my existential terror is that a real viral entry treatment will be developed, and that it may become unavailable or means-tested in an exclusionary way.

Imagine going about your life like a normal person into your 40's or 50's, then one day deciding as the CEO of a company that you'd rather millions of people die than let your investors down or let your company go out of business. I suppose there are fiduciary duty ramifications too that will potentially ruin your life, but still... one day you're a moral, law-abiding person, the next you're a mass murderer (by abste…

Well the key is that there is no one person making this call.

Some middle manager instructs a bunch of peons to look for places to cut costs. One of them finds that doing X costs Y when doing it another way could cost Z. This all gets packaged to a higher up who just sees it costs Y to do X, and writes a report noting that X is a result of W. This goes up the chain to someone who needs to evaluate whether to cut U,V or W and they recommend W because it ultimately costs Y. This goes up another level to someone who approves a budget that cuts W to save Y and packages this into some nice talking points. The CEO then presents these talking points to the board and is congratulated for saving Y and then move on to questioning why X isn't being done any more.

Every individual is making somewhat reasonable decisions from their myopic perspective but in aggregate they are incompetent. No one is deciding to let millions die, they simply don't take the time to understand what effects their actions have.

Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#74

Post by plicense »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #59
kstenerud wrote: post #2

"The drug, which was invented for Ebola but failed to work, is under patent to Gilead, which means no other company in wealthy countries can make it." Sorry, but if the one blessed company with the patent can't keep up with demand, and millions are going to die because there are patent restrictions, then ignore the patent laws and save some lives. It wouldn't look too good if the American government tried to stop it,…

The last studies I saw showed Remdesivir didn't actually save lives. Unless some very different studies have come out, this is just a politically connected pharma company using the pandemic to get a fat check from the US government. This is just your standard every day corruption.

One of my friends is an anaesthetist dealing with Covid patients day in day out in India. She works for a Government hospital and they started trying Remdesivir 3 days ago. She said all three patients that they have given the drug to have died of arrest - she does insist though that its not because of the drug but she was saying that it isn't improving things if the patient is in late stages of Covid.

Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#75

Post by newsbinator »

BurningFrog wrote: post #65
newsbinator wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine going about your life like a normal person into your 40's or 50's, then one day deciding as the CEO of a company that you'd rather millions of people die than let your investors down or let your company go out of business. I suppose there are fiduciary duty ramifications too that will potentially ruin your life, but still... one day you're a moral, law-abiding person, the next you're a mass murderer (by abste…

How do you imagine millions of people will die again? I plan to disagree, but first I need to know what the hell you're trying to say.

In the case of Remdesivir, which is hard to make, imagine you're the CEO of Gilead and the government of a country tells you they need it, people are dying without it, they're going to mass produce it at scale, and you're going to tell them how to retool their factories to produce it, since it'll take extra months of trial and error if you don't, during which people are dying and the disease is spreading exponentially.

Now you have a decision to make: ignore your patent and your fiduciary duty to investors, or defend your patent in court and your right to profit from the drug you invented.

Yesterday you were a moral person, today you're faced with the chance to become one of history's greatest villains.

That's the crux of my earlier comment, with which you can now proceed to disagree.

(Note: in reality Remdesivir seems not to be an extreme life & death drug- it only shortens recovery time, so it wouldn't quite fit into the scenario I presented).

Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#76

Post by abdusco »

pmontra wrote: post #70

According to the article 500,000 doses are the production of July, and 90% of August and September. Three full months would be 500,000 / 2.80 * 3 = 535,714 doses. A full treatment is made of six doses. There are 89,285 treatments in there. Less than 30,000 per month. Too bad for the rest of the world that all of them will happen in the USA but they are way too few to matter globally. Split them proportionally with th…

> Better, local production, which I understand is neither quick nor easy.

I know nothing about the patent law, but according to the article, drug is patented. Assuming the process is not open-source, I'd argue that other countries would be looking for alternative vaccinations.

From the article:

> The drug, which was trialed in the Ebola epidemic but failed to work as expected, is under patent to Gilead, which means no other company in wealthy countries can make it. The cost is around $3,200 per treatment of six doses, according to the US government statement.

Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#78

Post by skylanh »

lksaar wrote: post #14
kstenerud wrote: post #2

"The drug, which was invented for Ebola but failed to work, is under patent to Gilead, which means no other company in wealthy countries can make it." Sorry, but if the one blessed company with the patent can't keep up with demand, and millions are going to die because there are patent restrictions, then ignore the patent laws and save some lives. It wouldn't look too good if the American government tried to stop it,…

Canada already did that once in regards to Cipro (anthrax antidote patented by bayer) back in 2001. The Bush gov forced Bayer to sell it for way cheaper, by threathing to buy generics instead. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/24/business/a-nation-challen...

I was curious about this, so did a little search:

Other interesting results were:

Canada forced to honour Bayer's patent on ciprofloxacin (BMJ. 2001 Oct 27; 323(7319): 956. PMCID: PMC1172996)

> In an embarrassing mix-up, Canada's federal government will pay twice for a supply of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin (marketed as Cipro) that it ordered to protect Canadians in case they are faced with an outbreak of anthrax, as has happened in the United States.

...

> After a meeting of officials from the health department and both companies on Monday, the government announced it will still pay the generic firm the amount of its contract— $C1.3m (£580 000; $824 000)—and will buy another 900 000 tablets from Bayer. Bayer's price is said to be $C2.50 a tablet, compared with Apotex's $C1.50. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1172996/

Canadian government almost swamped by ciprofloxacin (BMJ. 2001 Nov 3; 323(7320): 1026. PMCID: PMC1173010)

> Canada's federal government has narrowly avoided having to pay for twice as much of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin (Cipro) as it thinks it needs to protect its citizens in the case of an outbreak of anthrax.

> The federal health department circumvented its own drug patent rules when it ordered about 900 000 tablets of the medication from a generic drug manufacturer, Apotex. The patent, held by Bayer AG, does not expire until 2004. Bayer reportedly threatened to sue. But after an announcement by the government that it would both pay the generic firm the amount of its contract—$C1.3m (£574 000; $825 000)—and buy another 900 000 tablets from Bayer, both drug companies let the health minister, Allan Rock, off the hook.

...

> Under the patent act, the government could have obtained authorisation to have a non-patented version of ciprofloxacin on a non-commercial basis, but it failed to ask for this.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1173010/

Re: USA buys up world stock of remdesivir

#79

Post by phalangion »

plicense wrote: post #74
Consultant32452 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last studies I saw showed Remdesivir didn't actually save lives. Unless some very different studies have come out, this is just a politically connected pharma company using the pandemic to get a fat check from the US government. This is just your standard every day corruption.

One of my friends is an anaesthetist dealing with Covid patients day in day out in India. She works for a Government hospital and they started trying Remdesivir 3 days ago. She said all three patients that they have given the drug to have died of arrest - she does insist though that its not because of the drug but she was saying that it isn't improving things if the patient is in late stages of Covid.

I have no idea if remdesivir works or not, but that is the problem with drugs in a shortage scenario like we're currently seeing. If there aren't enough of them, you're going to save them for the most critical patients. But those patients are the most likely to die anyway. That's why randomized controlled trials are so important. Data from a hospital that's not randomizing distribution of the drug is not really helpful.
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