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Cost of developing new drugs may be lower than industry claims: trial

(www.theguardian.com)
275 points swores | 8 comments | 25 Apr 24 12:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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hi-v-rocknroll ◴[26 Apr 24 19:23 UTC] No.40173019[source]▶
Semaglutide retails for $17k USD/year in the US but costs only $60 to make. Perhaps it could be argued that the autoinjectors are "expensive", but not $17k/year and oral forms are coming online to make this item moot. In limited circumstances, excessive profits cross into the realm of price gouging and shouldn't be allowed by regulatory enforcement.
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1. aantix ◴[26 Apr 24 20:14 UTC] No.40173707[source]▶
That's like saying "It took them five minutes to enter these lines of code. Why are we paying them so much!?!?!?"
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2. jfoutz ◴[26 Apr 24 20:23 UTC] No.40173798[source]▶
We really did this wrong. We should get paid for every time the lines are run.
replies(1): >>40174100 #
3. tompccs ◴[26 Apr 24 20:48 UTC] No.40174100[source]▶
That's SaaS
4. abecedarius ◴[26 Apr 24 20:52 UTC] No.40174140[source]▶
More directly, like "it costs, like, a penny to download the software to the client, why do we pay so much?" Marginal cost vs. amortized development.

(Making a limited point separate from my general opinions of Big Drug, etc.)

5. heavyset_go ◴[26 Apr 24 21:10 UTC] No.40174328[source]▶
We can look at what those drugs retail in other countries to see how much price gouging is going on. Turns out it's a lot.
replies(1): >>40175864 #
6. davisr ◴[26 Apr 24 21:21 UTC] No.40174451[source]▶
In your example, if it did take a programmer 5 minutes, and they don't have any real accountability anyway (not like a real engineer), then why _are_ we paying them so much?
7. Der_Einzige ◴[26 Apr 24 21:25 UTC] No.40174481[source]▶
SWEs are massively overpaid. News at 11…
8. aantix ◴[27 Apr 24 00:26 UTC] No.40175864[source]▶
Purchases in the U.S. subsidize those other countries.