4 ms·

I don't understand this cynicism. The people who could hypothetically push this forward don't have to be the same people selling prep or other anti-virals

SoftTalker 1y ago
At some point, Eli Lilly or Pfizer or Astra-Zenica or a company like them will have to mass produce and market the drug. They aren't going to kill their golden geese.
- ebiester 1y ago
  It's game theory in our favor. The team that gets this right suddenly gets 100% of the pie and deals a blow to their competitors, at least until their competitors can find their own path. A five year monopoly on this kind of treatment would be worth more than all the PREP and HIV meds for any one company.
  - altruios 1y ago
    Game theory is not in the peoples' favor. Consider then every other company's game theory: 'go out of business unless... (we stop this research before it is too late and a cure is developed)' which can lead to some dark places. Also: companies do not think like a person thinks. Insolation from consequences, diffuse responsibility, and other mechanisms come into play here.
- _ihaque 1y ago
  If this (or, more accurately, a drug developed downstream of this technology) worked, they absolutely would. A great example of this in relatively recent history is the treatment of hepatitis C. The treatments pre-circa-2011 were pretty crappy: interferon/ribavirin had poor cure rates and bad side effects. But it was still better than hepatitis destroying your liver, so people dealt with it. Then, in 2011, as the culmination of years of trials, telaprevir (from Vertex/J&J) [1] and boceprevir (Schering-Plough/Merck) [2] were approved and were DRAMATICALLY BETTER than interferon/ribavirin. ...and then just two years later both of these drugs got nuked by the approval of sofosbuvir (aka Sovaldi, from Pharmasset/Gilead) [3], which has _cure_ rates in excess of 90%. Telaprevir and boceprevir were pulled from the market because there was simply no more market for them once sofosbuvir hit. Scientific competition at its finest. There is absolutely a dark side to pharmaceutical pricing and licensing, but please don't let the existence of that dark side cloud your vision of the transformative impact that those of us in biotech R&D want to have (and in many cases, have had). I was at Vertex when the early trial data on telaprevir started coming out and it became clear that we might be able to offer patients real hope who did not have it before. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telaprevir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telaprevir [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boceprevir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boceprevir [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofosbuvir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofosbuvir
  - brokensegue 1y ago
    I respect the effort you put into this. Sadly I don't think people with this mindset are convinced by this kind of evidence

SoftTalker 1y ago

At some point, Eli Lilly or Pfizer or Astra-Zenica or a company like them will have to mass produce and market the drug. They aren't going to kill their golden geese.

ebiester 1y ago
It's game theory in our favor. The team that gets this right suddenly gets 100% of the pie and deals a blow to their competitors, at least until their competitors can find their own path. A five year monopoly on this kind of treatment would be worth more than all the PREP and HIV meds for any one company.
- altruios 1y ago
  Game theory is not in the peoples' favor. Consider then every other company's game theory: 'go out of business unless... (we stop this research before it is too late and a cure is developed)' which can lead to some dark places. Also: companies do not think like a person thinks. Insolation from consequences, diffuse responsibility, and other mechanisms come into play here.
_ihaque 1y ago
If this (or, more accurately, a drug developed downstream of this technology) worked, they absolutely would. A great example of this in relatively recent history is the treatment of hepatitis C. The treatments pre-circa-2011 were pretty crappy: interferon/ribavirin had poor cure rates and bad side effects. But it was still better than hepatitis destroying your liver, so people dealt with it. Then, in 2011, as the culmination of years of trials, telaprevir (from Vertex/J&J) [1] and boceprevir (Schering-Plough/Merck) [2] were approved and were DRAMATICALLY BETTER than interferon/ribavirin. ...and then just two years later both of these drugs got nuked by the approval of sofosbuvir (aka Sovaldi, from Pharmasset/Gilead) [3], which has _cure_ rates in excess of 90%. Telaprevir and boceprevir were pulled from the market because there was simply no more market for them once sofosbuvir hit. Scientific competition at its finest. There is absolutely a dark side to pharmaceutical pricing and licensing, but please don't let the existence of that dark side cloud your vision of the transformative impact that those of us in biotech R&D want to have (and in many cases, have had). I was at Vertex when the early trial data on telaprevir started coming out and it became clear that we might be able to offer patients real hope who did not have it before. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telaprevir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telaprevir [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boceprevir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boceprevir [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofosbuvir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofosbuvir
- brokensegue 1y ago
  I respect the effort you put into this. Sadly I don't think people with this mindset are convinced by this kind of evidence