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Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

reuters.com

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Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#81

Post by Retric »

refurb wrote: post #72
Retric wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, if they continue to fund research, public entities would then pay to finish the process. This would mean either fewer drugs or more money for R&D. In the end when you change one part of the process you need to assume other parts of a related system will change in some manor.

The ones doing basic research today have zero capability to do the development part. So you'd be looking at spending a ton of money to try and develop the needed expertise to bring a molecule all the way to market. Would that also include commercialization - things like marketing?

I don’t know. Clinical trials can already be outsourced, so that’s not a major issue. And only two countries allow for direct to consumer drug marketing so that’s clearly unnecessary.

Honestly, this is simply not going to happen in the US so it’s hard to say what’s realistic.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#82

Post by pkaye »

Pharmakon wrote: post #77
aaavl2821 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could make a pretty good argument that a government funded drug research system would end up with more expensive drugs (in the form of higher taxes) than a for profit system Drugs, as a whole, aren't that expensive today compared to other healthcare. They make up 9.8% of US health care expenditure, which is pretty much middle of the pack compared to OECD countries. Hospitals, largely "non profit" (but sometimes m…

One could make a pretty good argument that a government funded drug research system would end up with more expensive drugs (in the form of higher taxes) than a for profit system. That sounds like a pretty interesting argument, but I notice that you didn’t actually make it. The rest of your post is full of claims sans evidence, and a lot of numbers out of context. For example how many of those newly approved drugs are…

> rejiggered stereochemistry to keep a patent

Can someone tell me how this patent extension works? If they improve on something, is that a new patent? Does the original patent expire or gets extended? Why couldn't someone else have discovered the new stereochemistry before the original inventor dose so? If the new discovery is not significant, wouldn't its be sufficient to use the generic form of the original chemistry?

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#83

Post by dodobirdlord »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #64
zaroth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pharmaceutical company Vertex sells the drug for $300k. Because CF Foundation helped fund the development, they get royalties, just like universities sometimes do when they help develop a drug. This is great for CF because it’s mostly the insurance companies (and therefore healthy people) who are bearing the costs of the treatment. So the CF Foundation is “forcing donatations” from the healthy populace through in…

> This is great for CF because it’s mostly the insurance companies (and therefore healthy people) who are bearing the costs of the treatment. Don't we all bear the cost of treatment in the form of higher insurance costs because insurance companies are paying exorbitant prices on drugs (among other things)?

Sure, that's how insurance works. The crux of the issue is whether the prices are actually "exorbitant" or whether that's just political spin. I happen to think it's just political spin.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#84

Post by m0zg »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #60
Thriptic wrote: post #57

One thing that is typically not mentioned in these debates is the fundamental structure of the industry. Let's say someone finds a research compound which looks to be promising, and they start a new company to try to commercialize it. Often, they are looking at at least 1-2 decades to get that product to market. Assuming they don't sell out to a big company, they almost certainly have to go public before starting tri…

Maybe drug "companies" should be government entities then and not for-profit at all.

Funny how HN contributors can be simultaneously in favor of not "socializing losses", and something like this where the taxpayer would pay for someone else's gleam in the eye (often a multi-billion dollar gleam) and there would be no accountability whatsoever if it doesn't pan out or runs over budget by a factor of like 5x (see just about any large, complex government project as an example). That 20 year deathmarch often ends in an FDA not approving your thing.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#85

Post by coryrc »

pkaye wrote: post #82
Pharmakon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could make a pretty good argument that a government funded drug research system would end up with more expensive drugs (in the form of higher taxes) than a for profit system. That sounds like a pretty interesting argument, but I notice that you didn’t actually make it. The rest of your post is full of claims sans evidence, and a lot of numbers out of context. For example how many of those newly approved drugs are…

> rejiggered stereochemistry to keep a patent Can someone tell me how this patent extension works? If they improve on something, is that a new patent? Does the original patent expire or gets extended? Why couldn't someone else have discovered the new stereochemistry before the original inventor dose so? If the new discovery is not significant, wouldn't its be sufficient to use the generic form of the original chemist…

It is a new patent and the original can made generically once the old patent expires. Marketing is the difference. For example, you may have seen people talking about the excessive price of insulin in the US, but they ignore the fact that you can still get the old versions for very cheap. It's also done with "extended-release" versions of the old version.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#86

Post by dodobirdlord »

sykhotic wrote: post #34
rayiner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who the customer is has no bearing on whether a company spending 15% of revenues on R&D is a sign of efficiency or inefficiency. If your premise was true—that you can achieve increased efficiency by nationalizing research because it lets you cut out the other costs of running a company, then that principle would be applicable to Google as well as Novartis.

But if twice as much is spent on marketing then in the case of pharmaceuticals it appears this is inefficient. These drugs tend to be necessary for people in ways that Google is not. There are cases where people live in penury due to high drug costs. From the perspective of beneficial to society it seems from my perspective that this is inefficient. Whether or not Google is efficient isn’t relevant in this matter as…

> But if twice as much is spent on marketing then in the case of pharmaceuticals it appears this is inefficient.

Marketing includes the cost of bringing the new compound to the attention of medical professionals who might benefit from knowing about it. This means hosting conferences, having representation at conferences/trade shows/exhibitions, seminars and other educational material, etc. Medical professionals are busy people who don't have time to independently research every new compound being brought to market, so someone has to make it very easy for them to learn about new compounds and easy for them to determine if it's something they need to care about. Hospitals and pharmacies have to be convinced that it's something that should be stocked, insurance companies have to be convinced that the treatment is cost effective enough to justify covering.

> These drugs tend to be necessary for people in ways that Google is not. There are cases where people live in penury due to high drug costs. From the perspective of beneficial to society it seems from my perspective that this is inefficient.

The resources that are expended to create new drugs could in the short term be spent far more efficiently on saving lives were it all donated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The benefit to society of drug research is not the well being of those people that a drug can treat when it is created, but rather that the drug now exists and will be available for all time. On the balance of the moral calculus, what happens during the 10-15 year window in which the drug is available and still protected by patent is totally negligible.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#87

Post by cgag »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #60
Thriptic wrote: post #57

One thing that is typically not mentioned in these debates is the fundamental structure of the industry. Let's say someone finds a research compound which looks to be promising, and they start a new company to try to commercialize it. Often, they are looking at at least 1-2 decades to get that product to market. Assuming they don't sell out to a big company, they almost certainly have to go public before starting tri…

Maybe drug "companies" should be government entities then and not for-profit at all.

Maybe the government shouldn't have created a system so bad that one would make such a suggestion.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#88

Post by pkaye »

jknz wrote: post #50
simonsaidit wrote: post #46

In Denmark I recently saw a discussion between politicians and the just resigned head doctor of a major hospital where he said he no longer could bear the responsibility of “optimizing” and that there was not enough money in the coming years no mattter how much money the politicians were promising in their soon to be election campaigning.. and his belief was we had to decide what we can afford as a country in regard…

I am wondering if any cost-analysis studies have been done to assess the trade-off between lengthy end-of-life terminal care and the corresponding cost. Doctors seem to make such decisions all the time; but we may have at some point to discuss collectively how much of the public money involved in end-of-life terminal care (last two months, say) for elderly should be used instead for better care earlier in life. In co…

> Many people might be OK to get smaller premiums and better coverage throughout their life by explicitly rejecting coverage of end-of-life care.

This never works out. Right now many people buy low quality high deductible health insurance expecting never to get sick and then balk when they suddenly get ill and end up paying a huge deductible. People don't assess correctly what they need later in life. When people are denied the health care later due to these decisions, the death panel rhetoric will be brought up.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#89

Post by samfisher83 »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #68
JKCalhoun wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe drug "companies" should be government entities then and not for-profit at all.

One could make a pretty good argument that a government funded drug research system would end up with more expensive drugs (in the form of higher taxes) than a for profit system Drugs, as a whole, aren't that expensive today compared to other healthcare. They make up 9.8% of US health care expenditure, which is pretty much middle of the pack compared to OECD countries. Hospitals, largely "non profit" (but sometimes m…

The NIH is by far the single largest contributor to drug R+D in this country. Pretty much every big pharma company is cutting R+D.

Re: Dutch join backlash at expensive drugs by making their own

#90

Post by duxup »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #60
Thriptic wrote: post #57

One thing that is typically not mentioned in these debates is the fundamental structure of the industry. Let's say someone finds a research compound which looks to be promising, and they start a new company to try to commercialize it. Often, they are looking at at least 1-2 decades to get that product to market. Assuming they don't sell out to a big company, they almost certainly have to go public before starting tri…

Maybe drug "companies" should be government entities then and not for-profit at all.

Or start out as a generic company as clearly there is room for SOMEONE to make generics that are reasonably priced.
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