4 ms·

Selling a vaccine for a disease to virtually every person alive can make more money than selling drugs to treat a disease to the few people that actually get th

by knd775 7y ago

Selling a vaccine for a disease to virtually every person alive can make more money than selling drugs to treat a disease to the few people that actually get that disease.

throwaway5752 7y ago
No it can't. There is crap money in vaccines and they are hard to make. You can literally just open up Glaxo, Sanofi, et al annual reports and confirm this.
- refurb 7y ago
  Pfizer’s Best-Selling Drug Is Actually a Vaccine https://fortune.com/2019/02/05/pfizer-pneumonia-vaccine-treatment-shot-prevnar-13/ https://fortune.com/2019/02/05/pfizer-pneumonia-vaccine-trea...
  - throwaway5752 7y ago
    Software developers make $3M per year: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3304439/man-or-myth-the-3-million-google-engineer.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3304439/man-or-myth-the-3-... To not be glib: first, Prevnar is an outlier (https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/5-prevnar-13 https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/5-prevnar-13) and lack of profitability in basic vaccines is a public health problem in terms of investment in R&D and producer concentration https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2002/fall/vaccines.html https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2002/fall/vaccines.html (dated link but still accurate). They aren't like normal pharma in terms of their margins and R&D profile. You develops something for macular degeneration and it's a one off that can be depreciated. Influenza and some others require international monitoring, forecasting, sample collection and new work every season. It's closer to biologics or genetic therapies in terms of cost of revenue, but priced nowhere near that because of the economies of scale and, frankly, social responsibility of the producers.
    - refurb 7y ago
      It's definitely a different market than drugs with it's own set of challenges, but I'd say the lack of profitability has more to do with the disease state the vaccine is for versus the fact it's a vaccine. And the global vaccine market is work $32B right now, so there is obviously a lot of profit being made.[1] [1]https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vaccine-market-size-expected-to-surpass-77-billion-at-103-cagr-by-2024--million-insights-681224391.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vaccine-market-size...
      - throwaway5752 7y ago
        Look, I get your point on disease state and I don't think companies are doing it for charity. But I don't think it's helpful to drop revenue figures absent margins. And it would be interest to see comparative global profits broken down along lines like Prevnar/Gardasil vs dtap/mmr. Nothing against the former, but when I consider deaths from preventable diseases like the latter it's kind of staggering the value we get for the money. $32B is the market cap of twitter.
        refurb 7y ago
        $32B is the market cap of twitter. You're mixing market cap with annual sales. Twitter's revenue was $2.61B last year.
        throwaway5752 7y ago
        I'm not conflating them, I'm using it to put it in perspective. It's common rhetorically and I assume the HN audience is smart enough to understand that.

by knd775 7y ago

Selling a vaccine for a disease to virtually every person alive can make more money than selling drugs to treat a disease to the few people that actually get that disease.

throwaway5752 7y ago

No it can't. There is crap money in vaccines and they are hard to make. You can literally just open up Glaxo, Sanofi, et al annual reports and confirm this.

refurb 7y ago
Pfizer’s Best-Selling Drug Is Actually a Vaccine https://fortune.com/2019/02/05/pfizer-pneumonia-vaccine-treatment-shot-prevnar-13/ https://fortune.com/2019/02/05/pfizer-pneumonia-vaccine-trea...
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Software developers make $3M per year: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3304439/man-or-myth-the-3-million-google-engineer.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/3304439/man-or-myth-the-3-... To not be glib: first, Prevnar is an outlier (https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/5-prevnar-13 https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/5-prevnar-13) and lack of profitability in basic vaccines is a public health problem in terms of investment in R&D and producer concentration https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2002/fall/vaccines.html https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2002/fall/vaccines.html (dated link but still accurate). They aren't like normal pharma in terms of their margins and R&D profile. You develops something for macular degeneration and it's a one off that can be depreciated. Influenza and some others require international monitoring, forecasting, sample collection and new work every season. It's closer to biologics or genetic therapies in terms of cost of revenue, but priced nowhere near that because of the economies of scale and, frankly, social responsibility of the producers.
  - refurb 7y ago
    It's definitely a different market than drugs with it's own set of challenges, but I'd say the lack of profitability has more to do with the disease state the vaccine is for versus the fact it's a vaccine. And the global vaccine market is work $32B right now, so there is obviously a lot of profit being made.[1] [1]https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vaccine-market-size-expected-to-surpass-77-billion-at-103-cagr-by-2024--million-insights-681224391.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vaccine-market-size...
    - throwaway5752 7y ago
      Look, I get your point on disease state and I don't think companies are doing it for charity. But I don't think it's helpful to drop revenue figures absent margins. And it would be interest to see comparative global profits broken down along lines like Prevnar/Gardasil vs dtap/mmr. Nothing against the former, but when I consider deaths from preventable diseases like the latter it's kind of staggering the value we get for the money. $32B is the market cap of twitter.
      - refurb 7y ago
        $32B is the market cap of twitter. You're mixing market cap with annual sales. Twitter's revenue was $2.61B last year.
        throwaway5752 7y ago
        I'm not conflating them, I'm using it to put it in perspective. It's common rhetorically and I assume the HN audience is smart enough to understand that.