4 ms·

I’m not too glad. From the description, it sounds like it’s a massive expense to produce the drug, and if public attitudes force companies to give the results a

I’m not too glad. From the description, it sounds like it’s a massive expense to produce the drug, and if public attitudes force companies to give the results away for free, then there is no expectation of profits for pharma companies to invest for future preparedness for pandemics. I’d like them to charge a lot and make a killing. Governments can subsidize if they want.

mr_isomies 7y ago
How is "public attitude" forcing the company?
a_t48 7y ago
Why don't we just get the drugs now and figure out payment when there isn't an emergency going on? When there's a potential for thousands of people dying, I'd rather get the medicine produced and in the hands of the people who need it immediately. I agree that if the drug helps they should be compensated well, but there's a time and place for everything.
ianmobbs 7y ago
That's fairly cruel of you.
dwaltrip 7y ago
Perhaps pharma companies shouldn't be the ones planning for pandemic preparedness? Maybe some sort of societal structure that operates at a level above individual companies could bear this responsibility. That being said, I think it is fine if the government buys these supplies. I also think it is fine if a company wants to donate.
basilgohar 7y ago
You should be glad. Pharma companies are well-known historically to have milked monopolies to their own financial favor at the cost of public health, well-being, and welfare. They are not traditionally seen nor acting in congruence with altruism. If a company has decided to do so, that is great. But I think seeing this as some sort of a slippery slope seems completely backwards to me. It's about time pharma companies cut a little of their profits for the benefit of people. The cost of research is far outweighed by their excessive profits that come after the fact.
- avalys 7y ago
  I don't know how you can complain about "excessive profits" for entirely novel products that a drug company brings into existence, essentially, starting from nothingness. No amount of profit is excessive - the profit is the motivation for them to invest in further research and we should all hope it continues to be so. "Profit" directly represents how much value to society their drug produced. If someone cures cancer, are you going to whine about how much money they make from it? Are you going to claim that, because they produced something extremely valuable, society has the right to take it from them for less than it's worth? This is not the same as, say, an ISP making excessive profits by manipulating the market and building themselves a quasi-monopoly, or a bank harvesting profits by taking huge risks with the understanding that the Federal Reserve will bail them out if everything blows up. The ISP isn't innovating, isn't creating anything, they're merely an engine for spending and allocating resources. The bank isn't creating anything either, they're just moving money around and playing social engineering games with society. Complaints about profits in these industries are totally reasonable, since these companies are basically just middlemen sucking money from the economy in order to maintain the plumbing. But to complain about excessive profits in an industry whose entire purpose is to discover new things? That makes no sense to me. What alternative would you prefer?
  - ejstronge 7y ago
    > The bank isn't creating anything either, they're just moving money around and playing social engineering games with society How would you react to a situation in which small companies discovered new drugs for ~$10 million, building on public research, and then were purchased by larger pharma companies for ~$300 million, and in which the large pharma companies aimed to earn ~$1-5 billion before the patents on the small company's invention expire?
    - s1artibartfast 7y ago
      I would say that there is a common misunderstanding of: A) the viability initial drug discovery and subsequent development costs, and B) The time value of money. For A) success rates of 5000:1 are not uncommon. Discovery is at the very beginning of this process [1],which can take 12–15 years and cost in excess of $1 billion [2] B) A 1 to 5 billion dollar return on a 300 million acquisition is likely a loosing proposition for most pharma companies due to risk and the time value of money. If you have a 300m acquisition, 700m additional dev costs, a 50% time discount, and a 50% chance of success, you are already up to 4 billion in revenue needed to break even. This article [3] provides a balanced overview of the finical aspect and is written by a scientist trying to give away a cure for his terminal wife. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/ [3] http://www.cureffi.org/2019/04/29/financial-modeling-in-rare-disease/ http://www.cureffi.org/2019/04/29/financial-modeling-in-rare...
ejstronge 7y ago
My guess regarding why they have a stockpile of this drug is that they were hoping to be able to sell it for ebola, for which it's ineffective, and have subsequently been trying to figure out how to sell it. Here, they're able to get clinical trial information (and lots of goodwill) with a potentially small marginal expenditure. It's also not entirely clear what it means to provide the drugs "at no cost" (later on it says "no charge", but in a separate sentence), nor is it clear how long this promise will last.
dang 7y ago
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786688)

mr_isomies 7y ago

How is "public attitude" forcing the company?

a_t48 7y ago

Why don't we just get the drugs now and figure out payment when there isn't an emergency going on? When there's a potential for thousands of people dying, I'd rather get the medicine produced and in the hands of the people who need it immediately. I agree that if the drug helps they should be compensated well, but there's a time and place for everything.

ianmobbs 7y ago

That's fairly cruel of you.

dwaltrip 7y ago

Perhaps pharma companies shouldn't be the ones planning for pandemic preparedness? Maybe some sort of societal structure that operates at a level above individual companies could bear this responsibility. That being said, I think it is fine if the government buys these supplies. I also think it is fine if a company wants to donate.

basilgohar 7y ago

You should be glad. Pharma companies are well-known historically to have milked monopolies to their own financial favor at the cost of public health, well-being, and welfare. They are not traditionally seen nor acting in congruence with altruism. If a company has decided to do so, that is great. But I think seeing this as some sort of a slippery slope seems completely backwards to me. It's about time pharma companies cut a little of their profits for the benefit of people. The cost of research is far outweighed by their excessive profits that come after the fact.

avalys 7y ago
I don't know how you can complain about "excessive profits" for entirely novel products that a drug company brings into existence, essentially, starting from nothingness. No amount of profit is excessive - the profit is the motivation for them to invest in further research and we should all hope it continues to be so. "Profit" directly represents how much value to society their drug produced. If someone cures cancer, are you going to whine about how much money they make from it? Are you going to claim that, because they produced something extremely valuable, society has the right to take it from them for less than it's worth? This is not the same as, say, an ISP making excessive profits by manipulating the market and building themselves a quasi-monopoly, or a bank harvesting profits by taking huge risks with the understanding that the Federal Reserve will bail them out if everything blows up. The ISP isn't innovating, isn't creating anything, they're merely an engine for spending and allocating resources. The bank isn't creating anything either, they're just moving money around and playing social engineering games with society. Complaints about profits in these industries are totally reasonable, since these companies are basically just middlemen sucking money from the economy in order to maintain the plumbing. But to complain about excessive profits in an industry whose entire purpose is to discover new things? That makes no sense to me. What alternative would you prefer?
- ejstronge 7y ago
  > The bank isn't creating anything either, they're just moving money around and playing social engineering games with society How would you react to a situation in which small companies discovered new drugs for ~$10 million, building on public research, and then were purchased by larger pharma companies for ~$300 million, and in which the large pharma companies aimed to earn ~$1-5 billion before the patents on the small company's invention expire?
  - s1artibartfast 7y ago
    I would say that there is a common misunderstanding of: A) the viability initial drug discovery and subsequent development costs, and B) The time value of money. For A) success rates of 5000:1 are not uncommon. Discovery is at the very beginning of this process [1],which can take 12–15 years and cost in excess of $1 billion [2] B) A 1 to 5 billion dollar return on a 300 million acquisition is likely a loosing proposition for most pharma companies due to risk and the time value of money. If you have a 300m acquisition, 700m additional dev costs, a 50% time discount, and a 50% chance of success, you are already up to 4 billion in revenue needed to break even. This article [3] provides a balanced overview of the finical aspect and is written by a scientist trying to give away a cure for his terminal wife. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_to_lead [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3058157/ [3] http://www.cureffi.org/2019/04/29/financial-modeling-in-rare-disease/ http://www.cureffi.org/2019/04/29/financial-modeling-in-rare...

ejstronge 7y ago

My guess regarding why they have a stockpile of this drug is that they were hoping to be able to sell it for ebola, for which it's ineffective, and have subsequently been trying to figure out how to sell it. Here, they're able to get clinical trial information (and lots of goodwill) with a potentially small marginal expenditure. It's also not entirely clear what it means to provide the drugs "at no cost" (later on it says "no charge", but in a separate sentence), nor is it clear how long this promise will last.

dang 7y ago

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786688)