3 ms·
It's a pricing model in line with extortion This common attitude is why I fear that we won't see true cures for anything, except perhaps from government labs.
by masonic 7y ago
It's a pricing model in line with extortion
This common attitude is why I fear that we won't see true cures for anything, except perhaps from government labs.
This class of HepC drugs (Solvaldi et al) are cures. Not chronic treatments, but cures. The developer only has that one course of treatment to make all the revenue they ever will on that patient.
So what happens when they are told that they can't charge prices commensurate with the result? They'll abandon a cure model for treatments that have ongoing chronic purchases to provide revenue streams over time.
Imagine this category of HepC drugs being marketed as a $999/month regimen for life rather than $50K for a one time cure. They would face far less friction. Happy now, consumers?
This is why new antibiotic research was abandoned, by and large.
- clavalle 7y agoIf everyone in the United States with Hepatitis C was treated at a cost of $50K it would be $150 billion dollars. That's over 8 times what Viagra pulled in over the past 20 years. I'm not sure where the line between reasonable profit-taking and extortion lies, but it's probably somewhere south of the GDP of Kuwait.
- refurb 7y ago$150B would be the same as the lifetime sales of Lipitor, which was not even a cure.[1] [1] https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/T027-S001-the-15-all-time-best-selling-prescription-drugs/index.html https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/T027-S001-the-...
- crankylinuxuser 7y agoAnd the cure they "created" was in reality from a university or government lab. Paid for by the citizens. Ain't regulatory capture and 'release' great?