7 ms·

Blaming difficulty of problems on capitalism alone is disingenuous. There are huge scientific projects that are not profitable and still done because there is a

by vladms 2y ago

Blaming difficulty of problems on capitalism alone is disingenuous. There are huge scientific projects that are not profitable and still done because there is a somehow clearer path forward (ex: UKBioBank, CERN, ITER). When I hear "{x} is not very profitable" I think people mean "we are not sure if we succeed doing {x} and it requires us to divert lots of resources from other things that we think would be more useful". Pharma companies invest already huge amounts in drugs and many fail anyhow. Quote: "It takes 10 to 15 years and around US$1 billion to develop one successful drug. Despite these significant investments in time and money, 90% of drug candidates in clinical trials fail." (https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/opinions/031222/90-of-drugs-fail-clinical-trials https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/opinions/031222/90-of-drug...)

jdiff 2y ago
That quote itself seems to be disingenuous, conflating "one successful drug" which costs $1B with "drug candidates in clinical trials." Even more so when taken from context, as the next sentence in the article is > Whether because they don’t adequately treat the condition they’re meant to target or the side effects are too strong, many drug candidates never advance to the approval stage. And that doesn't sound "successful" at all. How much money is sunk into R&D at the point of failure is the much more relevant statistic to consider. If the pharmaceutical industry wasn't wildly profitable, they'd be investing those billions elsewhere, leaving drugs to a slow-cooking niche.
- vladms 2y ago
  There is no claim that each drug costs 1$ billion. If you stop after 1-2 years of development you might have wasted some millions, if you stop after 3-4 years you wasted tens of millions and so on. The 10% success is still very low, because you can still fail after 10 years (potentially investing a lot) If you are interested in the topic, for example for oncology: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2807710 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... , to quote "Failed drug development in oncology incurs substantial expense. At an industry level, an estimated $50 billion to $60 billion is spent annually on failed oncology trials." There is no "oracle" that says invest 50 million (or 100 million or 1 billion) in X or Y and it will succeed (in pharma or other domains). And this is not exclusively because of capitalism, it is because doing some things is hard.

by vladms 2y ago

jdiff 2y ago

That quote itself seems to be disingenuous, conflating "one successful drug" which costs $1B with "drug candidates in clinical trials." Even more so when taken from context, as the next sentence in the article is > Whether because they don’t adequately treat the condition they’re meant to target or the side effects are too strong, many drug candidates never advance to the approval stage. And that doesn't sound "successful" at all. How much money is sunk into R&D at the point of failure is the much more relevant statistic to consider. If the pharmaceutical industry wasn't wildly profitable, they'd be investing those billions elsewhere, leaving drugs to a slow-cooking niche.

vladms 2y ago
There is no claim that each drug costs 1$ billion. If you stop after 1-2 years of development you might have wasted some millions, if you stop after 3-4 years you wasted tens of millions and so on. The 10% success is still very low, because you can still fail after 10 years (potentially investing a lot) If you are interested in the topic, for example for oncology: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2807710 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... , to quote "Failed drug development in oncology incurs substantial expense. At an industry level, an estimated $50 billion to $60 billion is spent annually on failed oncology trials." There is no "oracle" that says invest 50 million (or 100 million or 1 billion) in X or Y and it will succeed (in pharma or other domains). And this is not exclusively because of capitalism, it is because doing some things is hard.