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Originally Posted by joeychitwood
Hopefully, if and when a company develops an antiviral effective against the Coronavirus, they won’t be allowed to charge $1000 or $5000 a dose in the US as they do with every other new medication.
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Originally Posted by statsman
It depends. If, after accounting for R&D amortization, a dose costs $800 to produce, then I am fine with them making a 25% profit. This is the lesson of economics- economics systems that reward productivity get lots of productivity. Systems that don’t reward productivity (communism, some socialism, robber baron capitolism) don’t get as much productivity.
The hepatitis cure famously cost $100k...at first. What should a hepatitis sufferer say in response? “Thank you”. It took a little over a year for the cost to drop dramatically, and people should feel grateful to the researchers that helped them.
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Grateful to the researchers anyone ought to be for a lifesaving treatment, now what about the organization? I’m not overly familiar with the pharmaceutical industry, but I am familiar with their profits. Are the researchers the beneficiaries of the bulk of these profits? Profit in the double digit billions is healthy to say the least. Ford builds cars that society can’t run without, and their profits are a fraction of what the drug makers pull in, yet Ford still does it. I also question this, a $100,000 drug is being paid out by an insurance industry that is also trying to save money and denying coverage in other areas. I’m no expert, but doesn’t that hamstring the healthcare system? The researchers want to help people, I imagine. The individual doesn’t have there means to pay that, in general. It seems there has been a fair bit of abuse in the pricing arena. Grateful to researchers yes, the rest of it seems smashing even at a fraction of current profits. $100,000 treatments look different in this light. Particularly when public health is at stake.
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Originally Posted by mountainjogger
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I would have liked to have seen a base discussion of why, what the current conditions are that are causing us to be expecting more and more severe superbugs, and have some address at the root to establish the premise.
The approach in this article, while no doubt interesting in its forward imagination, also assumes more and worse. That’s an arguably dystopian view if it’s a presumption, and if these are not emergency measures and are ongoing. There have been major superbugs in history, as famous as our current antagonist. What happened in between? Not arguing whether these methods will work, but without taking a few steps back there are tons of scenarios you can come up with if you assume it’s this way and worse, forever. Then it’s a creative exercise and as far as I can see this article is arguing for the necessity.