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>while those who sell the cure will make practically all the money Why would they release a cure when they could make more money releasing their own chronic tr

>while those who sell the cure will make practically all the money Why would they release a cure when they could make more money releasing their own chronic treatment instead?

daniellarusso 5y ago
I feel this is a valid question, particularly considering patents.
- gruez 5y ago
  patents only last 20 years and AFAIK by the time it gets to market it's closer to only 10-15 years.
andix 5y ago
Because someone else will release the cure at some point.
captn3m0 5y ago
Someone else might make the cure and they corner the market?
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
I suspect the answer will be something like "maybe they won't, but their competitors are incentivised to", which naturally ignores the long history of price fixing and collusion.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  unlike OPEC, they do not control a commodity. People will travel to rogue jurisdictions that choose to make money by defecting, some may even invalidate patents like India.
  - MikeHolman 5y ago
    That completely misses the point. The problem is that companies won't do the research to find cures -- because cures don't make money. You can't go to India for a cure that doesn't exist.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      i don't buy there will be no research. no trials/commercialization maybe. Once there is enough research, you can have grey-ish market commercialization. cancer immunotherapy works, and at times (maybe even often) is curative. Same with stem cells. Zolgensma, a one time cure that costs 2 million dollars, also exists. Public goods funding as a thing also exists. I'm not so pessimistic about it. There is still a profit incentive.
    - 542354234235 5y ago
      >That completely misses the point. The problem is that companies won't do the research to find cures -- because cures don't make money. This is only true if a company is confident that all other companies are also not working on a cure. That may be feasible when dealing with a local service or commodity (as you only have to come to a wink wink agreement with other companies in the local area) or when only a few companies control a large amount of a limited resource (like OPEC). That does not work well when dealing with an idea or technology. Any company anywhere in the world could decide to research a cure. A Nation State-run research group could do it and just give the patent away. It is virtually impossible to get all of them to not research it, and if any of them anywhere find a cure, your treatment profits fall off a cliff. So it makes fiscal sense to sell the treatment, use your market position to get the best data on the condition, and research a cure so you can be first to market and control the distribution of the cure and ensure that the profits go back to you.
majormajor 5y ago
Releasing a cure for a condition with treatments in the market already is a much easier sell than releasing yet another treatment that you now have to market to everybody on the current thing. If the first couple players are in a treatment-only business, newcomers are incentivized differently than those initial players were. The more complicated answer is that if it's something poorly-understood where you came make different-but-similar treatments that will work better for some patients than others, and the current patient base isn't fully covered, there's still lots of incentives for treatment. Look at something like chronic inflammatory/immune stuff, and all the biologics out there. But then the answer to "why didn't someone just develop a cure" isn't just economics and greed, but also nobody knows how. In the surgical space, we actually do push expensive procedures over chronic therapy fairly often for things like joint or back issues. Of course, in that case, the economics are obvious - the surgeon and facility make their money that way. So if you can similarly convince the governments and insurance companies that your expensive cure is gonna save money compared to a lifetime of treatment (for surgery, this is being increasingly questioned, even), you can charge a lot for it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Why would they release a cure when they could make more money releasing their own chronic treatment instead? Because the probability of finding a cure, chronic or not, is extremely small.
nicoburns 5y ago
A non profit-motivated actor might well want to do this just for the societal good it would bring. I think this though underlines a key flaw in the idea that everything ought to be market driven. In some cases you end up driving yourself in contortions working out how to incentivise the market to behave in a certain way. Sometimes it better just to fund the damn thing directly.

>while those who sell the cure will make practically all the money Why would they release a cure when they could make more money releasing their own chronic treatment instead?

daniellarusso 5y ago

I feel this is a valid question, particularly considering patents.

gruez 5y ago
patents only last 20 years and AFAIK by the time it gets to market it's closer to only 10-15 years.

andix 5y ago

Because someone else will release the cure at some point.

captn3m0 5y ago

Someone else might make the cure and they corner the market?

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

I suspect the answer will be something like "maybe they won't, but their competitors are incentivised to", which naturally ignores the long history of price fixing and collusion.

inter_netuser 5y ago
unlike OPEC, they do not control a commodity. People will travel to rogue jurisdictions that choose to make money by defecting, some may even invalidate patents like India.
- MikeHolman 5y ago
  That completely misses the point. The problem is that companies won't do the research to find cures -- because cures don't make money. You can't go to India for a cure that doesn't exist.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    i don't buy there will be no research. no trials/commercialization maybe. Once there is enough research, you can have grey-ish market commercialization. cancer immunotherapy works, and at times (maybe even often) is curative. Same with stem cells. Zolgensma, a one time cure that costs 2 million dollars, also exists. Public goods funding as a thing also exists. I'm not so pessimistic about it. There is still a profit incentive.
  - 542354234235 5y ago
    >That completely misses the point. The problem is that companies won't do the research to find cures -- because cures don't make money. This is only true if a company is confident that all other companies are also not working on a cure. That may be feasible when dealing with a local service or commodity (as you only have to come to a wink wink agreement with other companies in the local area) or when only a few companies control a large amount of a limited resource (like OPEC). That does not work well when dealing with an idea or technology. Any company anywhere in the world could decide to research a cure. A Nation State-run research group could do it and just give the patent away. It is virtually impossible to get all of them to not research it, and if any of them anywhere find a cure, your treatment profits fall off a cliff. So it makes fiscal sense to sell the treatment, use your market position to get the best data on the condition, and research a cure so you can be first to market and control the distribution of the cure and ensure that the profits go back to you.

majormajor 5y ago

Releasing a cure for a condition with treatments in the market already is a much easier sell than releasing yet another treatment that you now have to market to everybody on the current thing. If the first couple players are in a treatment-only business, newcomers are incentivized differently than those initial players were. The more complicated answer is that if it's something poorly-understood where you came make different-but-similar treatments that will work better for some patients than others, and the current patient base isn't fully covered, there's still lots of incentives for treatment. Look at something like chronic inflammatory/immune stuff, and all the biologics out there. But then the answer to "why didn't someone just develop a cure" isn't just economics and greed, but also nobody knows how. In the surgical space, we actually do push expensive procedures over chronic therapy fairly often for things like joint or back issues. Of course, in that case, the economics are obvious - the surgeon and facility make their money that way. So if you can similarly convince the governments and insurance companies that your expensive cure is gonna save money compared to a lifetime of treatment (for surgery, this is being increasingly questioned, even), you can charge a lot for it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lotsofpulp 5y ago

> Why would they release a cure when they could make more money releasing their own chronic treatment instead? Because the probability of finding a cure, chronic or not, is extremely small.

nicoburns 5y ago

A non profit-motivated actor might well want to do this just for the societal good it would bring. I think this though underlines a key flaw in the idea that everything ought to be market driven. In some cases you end up driving yourself in contortions working out how to incentivise the market to behave in a certain way. Sometimes it better just to fund the damn thing directly.