13 ms·

And it's here in _two_ years

toyg 5y ago
One one side: great job, pharma industry! We're gonna live forever! On the other side: what are you folks not curing, with your magic powers, just because you know you won't be able to make a buck from it...?
- adminscoffee 5y ago
  this is where my mind was going, trying to remain positive and less conspiracy theory though. but it's really not secret that some companies (presumably pharmaceutical companies as well) have to stay in business and sometimes in order to do so, many companies build products that wear out, see how gillette razors came about for more insight on that
- et2o 5y ago
  Researchers in pharma are working extremely hard and almost always in good faith. I know this is probably tongue-in-cheek but it's not true.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Yeah it's not really researchers that I'm worried about, it's their bosses.
    - bun_at_work 5y ago
      Can you provide an example of a treatment people would like that 'big pharma' wouldn't produce because they couldn't make a profit on it? This is such a ridiculous argument, IMO. As a thought experiment consider something like cancer treatment. If some pharma company researcher found a way to 100% prevent or reverse cancer, why would the company hide that? In the best case, they could make a ton of money from it by selling it cheap to everyone. In the worse case, they could make a ton of money selling it to the ultra wealthy with an obscene price tag. If they tried to hide it, the researcher would share the information elsewhere, no?
      - rangoon626 5y ago
        The companies who make today's lengthy and expensive cancer treatments, are also making the mass-marketed personal care products that have carcinogens inside of them.
      - raesene9 5y ago
        Whilst I don't buy the malice (big pharma deliberately not curing things they could) argument, there's plenty of things they don't do 'cause they don't think they'll make a profit on them. Novel drug research is extremely expensive and time consuming, logically speaking a for-profit pharma company will assign its resources to the research which is most likely to make a profit. As a result rare conditions will not attract the research necessary to create drugs to treat them. To give you a concrete example, AFAIK there was never a vaccine for MERS which is a coronovirus which preceded COVID-19.
      - eganist 5y ago
        The practice is so widespread that the FDA had to create an incubator/accelerator to incentivize drug-making for rare conditions: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-research-cder/rare-diseases-program https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-res... And that's separate from the Office of Orphan Products Development: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/office-clinical-policy-and-programs/office-orphan-products-development https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/office-clinical-policy-and-pro... It's not a recent thing, too. Different programs have been enacted in the US going as far back as the Orphan Drug Act of 1983. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Drug_Act_of_1983 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Drug_Act_of_1983 Broader reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_drug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_drug
        bun_at_work 5y ago
        You're saying hiding the discovery of novel, profitable, drugs because profits from the existing treatment is widespread? I'm not saying the pharma companies pursue all possible opportunities to research/create new drugs, just that it's ridiculous to think if they did find one, they would suppress that information. It seems conspiratorial. The Orphan drug act or incubators you link don't contradict the point I'm trying to make, but maybe that's on me.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      You ascribe far more rationality to the process of developing drugs than is actually applied. Pharma mostly avoids low-profit avenues, but at least partly because that would be a good way to go out of business. However, to suggest that they intentionally suppress researchers with the goal of reducing costs seems a bit far-fetched.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        I don't understand the difference between intentionally suppressing researchers, which they are obviously not doing (that would be ghastly) and directing research towards the most profitable drugs, which they are obviously doing (to do otherwise would be bad business).
        dekhn 5y ago
        the former is an ethics violation, the latter is just a good strategy to win against the multi-armed bandit (which is how resource portfolios are managed at pharma). many pharma do invest some of their portfolio into things that are unlikely to have short-term or any payoff, and many of them also maintain compassionate programs to get expensive drugs to people who wouldn't be able to otherwise afford them. They do this because they are highly profitable, which unfortunately is as much explained by their marketing acumen as much as it is by solid research and development.
        whatshisface 5y ago
        Okay, so if I'm getting this straight, instructing researchers to not research unprofitable drugs is an ethics violation, while instructing them to research profitable ones is good strategy.
        s1artibartfast 5y ago
        If you have finite budget and finite researchers, you allocate them where are the most ROI is. Researchers aren't settling sitting idly by.
      - toyg 5y ago
  - dangerlibrary 5y ago
    Researchers need funding. The problem with "Big Pharma" is generally not with the intentions or capabilities of the researchers - it's with the funding.
  - ldehaan 5y ago
    Found the big pharma PR guy. The people in pharma are 100% not in this for the right reasons. Not one. Look into Every Single one of these companies just a tiny bit and you'll see how absolutely evil they are and by working for them you are complicit. You don't have to agree with reality, but that's reality.
    - et2o 5y ago
      You have a cartoonish view of reality.
    - GuB-42 5y ago
      People working in big pharma do it for money. But guess what, I work for money too, and it is the same for >99% of people. But most people appreciate it when as a side effect, their work save lives.
    - chefkoch 5y ago
      Huh, if all people working in pharma are complicit with big evil, what is your alternative? No one should work in pharma?
- chadash 5y ago
  Unfortunately, it's expensive. The cost of R&D to bring a new drug to market is around $1 billion, and this doesn't include the cost of marketing (though it does include the cost of drugs that fail the approval process)(see https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762311 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762311). At these numbers, it's hard to raise the money unless you think the drug is gonna be profitable.
  - noir_lord 5y ago
    On the one hand, yep absolutely. However on the other hand I look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_(R08) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_(R08) which cost $4 billon to build. A billion is a lot of money but not for governments, it's kinda tragic when you look at what we spend on some things that we haven't figured out a more sensible way of allocating resources.
    - DanHulton 5y ago
      The problem, as it ever seems to be, is capitalism.
      - todd8 5y ago
        What alternative to capitalism are you implying would be better? If you have a viable alternative, just do it yourself. (I’m not saying all by yourself, team up with others to make it happen.) I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely interested in what you believe would get us from here to a Startrek-like economic system.
        angelzen 5y ago
        Startrek is amazingly devoid of status conflicts. Everybody takes for granted the the BigCaptain is BigCaptain for life and that the SeniorOfficers are SeniorOfficers for life. The crew is content to work routine boring jobs for years on end with exceedingly rare promotions (where to promote to other than a new ship?). Even in a society of small scale material affluence, there are scarce coveted goods, for example, being the captain of a starship.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Diseases like COVID are probably some of the easier ones to cure. It’s a foreign body that is tangible. We deeply understand how the virus replicates and how it works. We know which proteins and nucleosides to target. We don’t have that luxury for diseases like cancer, autoimmune diseases, and the like.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  If it was cheaper to bring a drug through the regulatory process, obviously more drugs would be produced. The cost explosion for these things are mainly the responsibility of US regulators.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  The second statement is equivalent to arguing that cut-throat capitalists aren't that cut-throat.

toyg 5y ago

One one side: great job, pharma industry! We're gonna live forever! On the other side: what are you folks not curing, with your magic powers, just because you know you won't be able to make a buck from it...?

adminscoffee 5y ago
this is where my mind was going, trying to remain positive and less conspiracy theory though. but it's really not secret that some companies (presumably pharmaceutical companies as well) have to stay in business and sometimes in order to do so, many companies build products that wear out, see how gillette razors came about for more insight on that
et2o 5y ago
Researchers in pharma are working extremely hard and almost always in good faith. I know this is probably tongue-in-cheek but it's not true.
- toyg 5y ago
  Yeah it's not really researchers that I'm worried about, it's their bosses.
  - bun_at_work 5y ago
    Can you provide an example of a treatment people would like that 'big pharma' wouldn't produce because they couldn't make a profit on it? This is such a ridiculous argument, IMO. As a thought experiment consider something like cancer treatment. If some pharma company researcher found a way to 100% prevent or reverse cancer, why would the company hide that? In the best case, they could make a ton of money from it by selling it cheap to everyone. In the worse case, they could make a ton of money selling it to the ultra wealthy with an obscene price tag. If they tried to hide it, the researcher would share the information elsewhere, no?
    - rangoon626 5y ago
      The companies who make today's lengthy and expensive cancer treatments, are also making the mass-marketed personal care products that have carcinogens inside of them.
    - raesene9 5y ago
      Whilst I don't buy the malice (big pharma deliberately not curing things they could) argument, there's plenty of things they don't do 'cause they don't think they'll make a profit on them. Novel drug research is extremely expensive and time consuming, logically speaking a for-profit pharma company will assign its resources to the research which is most likely to make a profit. As a result rare conditions will not attract the research necessary to create drugs to treat them. To give you a concrete example, AFAIK there was never a vaccine for MERS which is a coronovirus which preceded COVID-19.
    - eganist 5y ago
      The practice is so widespread that the FDA had to create an incubator/accelerator to incentivize drug-making for rare conditions: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-research-cder/rare-diseases-program https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-res... And that's separate from the Office of Orphan Products Development: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/office-clinical-policy-and-programs/office-orphan-products-development https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/office-clinical-policy-and-pro... It's not a recent thing, too. Different programs have been enacted in the US going as far back as the Orphan Drug Act of 1983. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Drug_Act_of_1983 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Drug_Act_of_1983 Broader reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_drug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_drug
      - bun_at_work 5y ago
        You're saying hiding the discovery of novel, profitable, drugs because profits from the existing treatment is widespread? I'm not saying the pharma companies pursue all possible opportunities to research/create new drugs, just that it's ridiculous to think if they did find one, they would suppress that information. It seems conspiratorial. The Orphan drug act or incubators you link don't contradict the point I'm trying to make, but maybe that's on me.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    You ascribe far more rationality to the process of developing drugs than is actually applied. Pharma mostly avoids low-profit avenues, but at least partly because that would be a good way to go out of business. However, to suggest that they intentionally suppress researchers with the goal of reducing costs seems a bit far-fetched.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      I don't understand the difference between intentionally suppressing researchers, which they are obviously not doing (that would be ghastly) and directing research towards the most profitable drugs, which they are obviously doing (to do otherwise would be bad business).
      - dekhn 5y ago
        the former is an ethics violation, the latter is just a good strategy to win against the multi-armed bandit (which is how resource portfolios are managed at pharma). many pharma do invest some of their portfolio into things that are unlikely to have short-term or any payoff, and many of them also maintain compassionate programs to get expensive drugs to people who wouldn't be able to otherwise afford them. They do this because they are highly profitable, which unfortunately is as much explained by their marketing acumen as much as it is by solid research and development.
        whatshisface 5y ago
        Okay, so if I'm getting this straight, instructing researchers to not research unprofitable drugs is an ethics violation, while instructing them to research profitable ones is good strategy.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        If you have finite budget and finite researchers, you allocate them where are the most ROI is. Researchers aren't settling sitting idly by.
    - toyg 5y ago
- dangerlibrary 5y ago
  Researchers need funding. The problem with "Big Pharma" is generally not with the intentions or capabilities of the researchers - it's with the funding.
- ldehaan 5y ago
  Found the big pharma PR guy. The people in pharma are 100% not in this for the right reasons. Not one. Look into Every Single one of these companies just a tiny bit and you'll see how absolutely evil they are and by working for them you are complicit. You don't have to agree with reality, but that's reality.
  - et2o 5y ago
    You have a cartoonish view of reality.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    People working in big pharma do it for money. But guess what, I work for money too, and it is the same for >99% of people. But most people appreciate it when as a side effect, their work save lives.
  - chefkoch 5y ago
    Huh, if all people working in pharma are complicit with big evil, what is your alternative? No one should work in pharma?
chadash 5y ago
Unfortunately, it's expensive. The cost of R&D to bring a new drug to market is around $1 billion, and this doesn't include the cost of marketing (though it does include the cost of drugs that fail the approval process)(see https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762311 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762311). At these numbers, it's hard to raise the money unless you think the drug is gonna be profitable.
- noir_lord 5y ago
  On the one hand, yep absolutely. However on the other hand I look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_(R08) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Queen_Elizabeth_(R08) which cost $4 billon to build. A billion is a lot of money but not for governments, it's kinda tragic when you look at what we spend on some things that we haven't figured out a more sensible way of allocating resources.
  - DanHulton 5y ago
    The problem, as it ever seems to be, is capitalism.
    - todd8 5y ago
      What alternative to capitalism are you implying would be better? If you have a viable alternative, just do it yourself. (I’m not saying all by yourself, team up with others to make it happen.) I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely interested in what you believe would get us from here to a Startrek-like economic system.
      - angelzen 5y ago
        Startrek is amazingly devoid of status conflicts. Everybody takes for granted the the BigCaptain is BigCaptain for life and that the SeniorOfficers are SeniorOfficers for life. The crew is content to work routine boring jobs for years on end with exceedingly rare promotions (where to promote to other than a new ship?). Even in a society of small scale material affluence, there are scarce coveted goods, for example, being the captain of a starship.
thehappypm 5y ago
Diseases like COVID are probably some of the easier ones to cure. It’s a foreign body that is tangible. We deeply understand how the virus replicates and how it works. We know which proteins and nucleosides to target. We don’t have that luxury for diseases like cancer, autoimmune diseases, and the like.
BurningFrog 5y ago
If it was cheaper to bring a drug through the regulatory process, obviously more drugs would be produced. The cost explosion for these things are mainly the responsibility of US regulators.
kmeisthax 5y ago
The second statement is equivalent to arguing that cut-throat capitalists aren't that cut-throat.