$1,000-a-day miracle drug shocks U.S. health care system

[gotsmack]

This might be interesting - the fda or nih or whoever, says here's a billion (or something) dollars, release the patent. Not realistic I guess.

What the govt should do is to research their own drugs and then sell it to the citizens at cost. The profit can be made by selling it to other countries at a reasonable cost. Then we'll have public and private drug patents.

 

[Rudee]

"up to" 90%. Can be less than 90%. Can even be 20%.

 

[BoberFett]

A giant monopoly like an ENTIRE COUNTRY is going to have a much greater negotiating power to negotiate drug prices than however many insurance companies we have. This is why single payer makes sense and why libertarianism is dumb. Single payer systems act like one incredibly big union for it's entire citizenry.

You're a one-note fucktard.

 

[zinfamous]

But seriously, what is the manufacturing cost of this drug?

R&D for any drug that makes it past FDA level 3 screening can surpass $1 billion. And that is a very small percentage of drugs that each company will be actively developing.

Of those that make it to the market, only very few will achieve blockbuster status.

Much of the cost for any successful drug can be broken down to:

1: cost of R&D (already pretty close to 1 billion for that one drug)
2: cost of many, many failed drugs in development (many billions)
3: available competition (Here: none)

 

[PingviN]

"up to" 90%. Can be less than 90%. Can even be 20%.

Ehm, no? You have different genotypes of HCV, which is why it's an "up to" percentage. There is also the lower SVR in black people to account for and of course other patient groups, but it's not ever "20%". Read up.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Hayabusa: stop being daft, most drug discoveries have heavy government funding involved and drug companies just piggy back off that research and most of the 'benefit' that the drug companies provide is trials and studies to make sure the drugs are efficacious and safe. There's no justification for charging what they do and there's no justification for drug companies existing to begin with, everything should be done at private and public universities with government funding.

Actually I was the one in this thread which came up with a potential solution that the government has worked to strangle, one which would make a genuine change in the status quo. I know how funding works. I know what research in academia is like. I've done it, and later I worked in my wife's lab just for fun. I also have a few decades in dealing with the provider perspective, and medications to boot. I know what is required. I know what drug companies do which is good, and not. I also know FDA requirements and the monies and time invested far beyond what is involved in academia. I know it does indeed cost a billion plus for any attempt, and if it fails the drug companies are out. That means not only do they have to get paid for what comes to market but to recoup what has not. That's incredibly basic.

So no, it's not as simple as "those evil drug companies", and remember we are talking about one company with one product and that is what we are talking about.

Alternatives? Sure, and for the whole process of R&D, IP and legal issues and manufacturing. No political agenda. No limos. No wheeling and dealing for favors, votes, bank accounts.

The government killed it. So yeah, the corporations are guilty as anything, but they aren't alone.

I hope you are going to write your representatives after you read this, right?

 

[PingviN]

I would wait for the generic version which sells for $30 a month.

But seriously, what is the manufacturing cost of this drug?

Taking a drug all the way to approval costs somewhere in the range of $500 million to $2 billion. That's for one drug that is successful all the way. Sovaldi is likely in the billion dollar range.

1-5% of all drug candidates show enough promise to commence clinical trials.
About 20% of all phase I drugs go to market.
It's a very risky business, but the rewards when successful are high.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

To provide a little bit of context...

There already are cures for HCV. The problem is they all involve interferon, a cytokine produced by the own body which basically makes you feel like shit. It's reasonably effective if you can stand a full course of treatment, but a large number of people pull out of treatment before completion because it makes them feel so bad. This is exciting because it's an effective treatment that doesn't involve interferon, something that we've been trying to work towards for decades. It's not like HCV was incurable before, there are different serotypes that have different interferon cure rates (and I'd be interested to see the cure rates for this in comparison), but the exciting thing is that it'll hopefully be much better subjectively for patients even while they're on the treatment.

 

[brianmanahan]

It cures Hep C.

Where the h**l are the conspiracy nutcases: "derp, big pharma doesn't want cures. Because they make more money on treatments. Derp."

most likely in P&N