I swear to fucking god there is no single thing that makes me block more people than the reactions to the completely uncontroversial statement "novel drug development costs a fucking lot of money, actually"
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Drugs are especially aggravating, but I've found people have zero concept about what it takes to bring something workable from "idea in head" to "can purchase" if it is a physical object.
Might as well be drawing summoning circles on the ground and doing Ominous Faux-Latin Chanting.
It is a pretty straightforward situation that the research into new medications, antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, painkillers, etc are some serious money holes because they can't even guarantee they'll come up with something safe or viable despite all the manpower and effort.
Someone referred to that $40 cost which triggered that rant of your as "a question of sufficient case of Luigi" and it made me so irrationally mad i remember that particular block months after.
PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES AND INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE MORTAL ENEMIES-- oh god I can't even work up a good rant because right now it will make my head explode dammit
I mean, in that case the main subtext of the post (i refuse to call that one a skeet) was obviously "i hate capitalists and i wish them death so i could get everything i want for cheap and i'm oh so righteous and brave about it all". No single rant can break through that proposition.
This is why I think everyone should be exposed to the process of clinical trials. Having been (broke and so) in a few gave me a new understanding of side effects, of just how much it takes to get a medication approved and what medication safety means.
I mean, I DO think that we should be funding that development as a public good & the consumer costs for access should be low. It’s a crime that we spend billions on military and oil subsidies yet “can’t” fund medical tech advancements without the most ill among us being squeezed for life savings.
But yes, the R&D process is long and expensive, and not *every* expensive drug is only expensive because Big Pharma is greedy (though they are and there are a lot of things that should be a lot less expensive. Like insulin and epi-pens and inhalers.)
Honestly it's both good and surprising that drugs are usually only sold exclusively for about a decade until the patent expires. Imagine if Big Pharma had done a Disney and won century-long exclusivity like copyright
I once worked for a company whose drug development cost several million euros, and the drug itself, a once shot shot, would cost more than 500 000 euros. The way it worked is that with the social security, the final negociations for market authorizations are "how much of this will social security
cover"? Thee percentage depends on efficacy vs placebo, cure vs symptom management etc.
Amazing how people ubder that thread think low EU prices come magically
Since social security is funded via taxes, it leans that yeah everyone pays for everyone's drugs! But drugs save people even when expensive.
One of my best friends is in the process of becoming a Qualified Person for the pharma firm he works at. He reckons it's about twice as much work as his PhD. After a couple of conversations with him, I know exactly how much I *don't* know about the subject, and it is a LOT.
I'm convinced there has to be a better, fairer way to get drugs through clinical trials, but with the failure rate being what it is, I genuinely can't envision what that would even look like.
In my mind (and experience as a clinical trial manager) the best way to do this is be to do away with pharma-led trials and run everything through academic trials units like mine. Independent from companies with transparency. At least at the moment. I'm sure there's ways to fuck that up.
I used to work in Cell and Gene therapy and it was wild seeing people complain about the cost. Autologous cell therapies are absurdly complicated to manufacture, not to say anything about the development.
I think about this from time to time when the abandoned bionic eye story gets re-upped because I know a little bit about how profitable Second Sight was (not at all, they burned through a ton of cash)
Oh man big same. Worked for a company that did a similar device and drug to second sight and profitability was nil, in spite of an expected market price that would be basically inaccessible without a social security coverage of 70%
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Drug dev is that on Difficulty: Maniac
Might as well be drawing summoning circles on the ground and doing Ominous Faux-Latin Chanting.
Amazing how people ubder that thread think low EU prices come magically
Since social security is funded via taxes, it leans that yeah everyone pays for everyone's drugs! But drugs save people even when expensive.