5 ms·

It's absolutely what will happen (see wind, solar energy or anything that has ever caused market shifts) - in fact, it's pretty incredible that the article does

It's absolutely what will happen (see wind, solar energy or anything that has ever caused market shifts) - in fact, it's pretty incredible that the article doesn't acknowledge this. If the argument was about whether or not prices would drop fast enough, that would have been cogent.

duaneb 11y ago
The market for computers seems obvious. The market for gene therapy is less obvious.
- ianferrel 11y ago
  The market for computers is obvious now because there is a market for computers. The market for computers 40 years ago was far from obvious. Even 25 years ago, most people weren't really sure if this whole internet thing was going to amount to much. 15 years ago, people scoffed at the idea that the future of the internet was mobile phones. Predictions are hard. Especially about the future.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    I'd have thought the market for gene therapy was blindingly obvious compared with the market for computers 40 years ago: theoretical gene therapies being easier to conceive and more fundamental to human quality and length of life than theoretical everyday uses for calculation devices.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      Point mutation diseases impact a relatively small portion of the population. They are trivially addressable if you have a gene therapy that is able to work on arbitrary adult tissue, but it's not that huge a market. I think the largest win is sickle cell anemia, after that cystic fibrosis. Some way of treating obesity with gene therapy would be a blockbuster financially, but biologically we don't really have that worked out so much. (research is ongoing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Gene_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Gene_thera... )
    - duaneb 11y ago
      I'm pretty happy with my ~50 year life span. I wouldn't spend a dime on gene therapy ever.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  If gene therapy can keep people from dying, I'm pretty sure there will be a market.
bigchewy 11y ago
you may not be familiar with how healthcare works. There is, generally, almost no price pressure. In fact, consumers of healthcare, because they aren't paying for it, often equate higher price with higher quality so I wouldn't bet on the prices going down
- killface 11y ago
  but with medical tourism becoming more reliable and trusted, as well as companies hq'd in countries unencumbered by our insistence on patents for biology, it's likely this is where another country takes the "top" spot from the US. China, Brazil, and India all seems like good potentials.
  - DrScump 11y ago
    Medical tourism doesn't work for chronic disease requiring recurring visits/treatments... unless you move there.
    - WildUtah 11y ago
      unless you move there It's a big opportunity for Mexico, then. Already home of the most cost effective first world (OECD) universal health care system, Mexico has good facilities right on the US border in half a dozen cities and is popular for eye and dental procedures for US visitors already.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  > There is, generally, almost no price pressure. That's not actually true. There's tons of price pressure, but it all happens behind the scenes, and in a way that's invisible to patients. The way payments are structured, downward price pressure on suppliers may even correspond to an increase in the (apparent) out-of-pocket cost to patients. That doesn't mean that the overall amount that the manufacturers are getting paid isn't decreasing, though.
- HillRat 11y ago
  Health consumers are rarely the customers, though; providers' customers are actually the carriers, and the customers make the market in healthcare. The asymmetry in price signaling between patients and carriers causes, as you point out, weird distortions in the market. (It doesn't help that price transparency for patients is basically zero.)

duaneb 11y ago

The market for computers seems obvious. The market for gene therapy is less obvious.

ianferrel 11y ago
The market for computers is obvious now because there is a market for computers. The market for computers 40 years ago was far from obvious. Even 25 years ago, most people weren't really sure if this whole internet thing was going to amount to much. 15 years ago, people scoffed at the idea that the future of the internet was mobile phones. Predictions are hard. Especially about the future.
- notahacker 11y ago
  I'd have thought the market for gene therapy was blindingly obvious compared with the market for computers 40 years ago: theoretical gene therapies being easier to conceive and more fundamental to human quality and length of life than theoretical everyday uses for calculation devices.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Point mutation diseases impact a relatively small portion of the population. They are trivially addressable if you have a gene therapy that is able to work on arbitrary adult tissue, but it's not that huge a market. I think the largest win is sickle cell anemia, after that cystic fibrosis. Some way of treating obesity with gene therapy would be a blockbuster financially, but biologically we don't really have that worked out so much. (research is ongoing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Gene_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Gene_thera... )
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I'm pretty happy with my ~50 year life span. I wouldn't spend a dime on gene therapy ever.
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
If gene therapy can keep people from dying, I'm pretty sure there will be a market.

bigchewy 11y ago

you may not be familiar with how healthcare works. There is, generally, almost no price pressure. In fact, consumers of healthcare, because they aren't paying for it, often equate higher price with higher quality so I wouldn't bet on the prices going down

killface 11y ago
but with medical tourism becoming more reliable and trusted, as well as companies hq'd in countries unencumbered by our insistence on patents for biology, it's likely this is where another country takes the "top" spot from the US. China, Brazil, and India all seems like good potentials.
- DrScump 11y ago
  Medical tourism doesn't work for chronic disease requiring recurring visits/treatments... unless you move there.
  - WildUtah 11y ago
    unless you move there It's a big opportunity for Mexico, then. Already home of the most cost effective first world (OECD) universal health care system, Mexico has good facilities right on the US border in half a dozen cities and is popular for eye and dental procedures for US visitors already.
chimeracoder 11y ago
> There is, generally, almost no price pressure. That's not actually true. There's tons of price pressure, but it all happens behind the scenes, and in a way that's invisible to patients. The way payments are structured, downward price pressure on suppliers may even correspond to an increase in the (apparent) out-of-pocket cost to patients. That doesn't mean that the overall amount that the manufacturers are getting paid isn't decreasing, though.
HillRat 11y ago
Health consumers are rarely the customers, though; providers' customers are actually the carriers, and the customers make the market in healthcare. The asymmetry in price signaling between patients and carriers causes, as you point out, weird distortions in the market. (It doesn't help that price transparency for patients is basically zero.)