4 ms·
How do you wager Pharma makes good revenue from this? Compared to a chronically used drug like a statin, they DON'T stand to gain that much. It's a tragedy of t
by WhompingWindows 7y ago
How do you wager Pharma makes good revenue from this? Compared to a chronically used drug like a statin, they DON'T stand to gain that much. It's a tragedy of the commons...any one company or nation could invest heavily, but it's a vaccine...therefore, it'll be widely disseminated once and it'll be cheap. It won't be taken years on end like a statin: MUCH less revenue; I'm not sure pharma would be interested without great incentives.
- s1artibartfast 7y agofurthermore, I think there is a decent amount of abandoned IP from antibiotic companies that folded. I don't think anyone has found it viable to even manufacture them at a profit.
- ufmace 7y agoThere probably is, but have any of them been approved for commercial sale? That's the bottleneck that controls the industry. Creating a new antibiotic that might work is not that expensive, relatively speaking. Neither is manufacturing at scale. Proving that it's safe and effective to the current standards is extremely expensive, and risky - you get nothing at all if it eventually proves not to be effective enough.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoThere are examples linked elsewhere in this thread of novel antibiotic companies with FDA approval declaring bankruptcy due to lack of revenue. We intentionally want to limit the use of novel antibiotics to as few cases as possible to minimize resistance. Combined with price controls, this kills the economic viability.