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275 points swores | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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FredPret ◴[] No.40173118[source]
Drugs may be overpriced.

There is probably some bloat in drug development. But then again, maybe not. I'm not an expert.

What I do know is that drugs have gotten dramatically better in the short amount of time I've been alive.

The other thing we all know is that the source of this article, The Guardian and their friends, have a shitlist of industries and institutions it loves to hate.

Ask yourself: will they ever write a positive article about a defense contractor, a bank, big pharma, a US billionaire, or a landlord, even if said entity walks on water and then saves a million babies and the penguins and the world?

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CogitoCogito ◴[] No.40173184[source]
> What I do know is that drugs have gotten dramatically better in the short amount of time I've been alive.

How do you know this? How do you measure “better”? Something like QOL improvement per dollar? Have you done (or read) some large study on this or something?

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zer00eyz ◴[] No.40173239[source]
Were curing forms of cancer that would have killed you decades ago.

HIV, in my life time was a death sentence. Now people are living almost full lives.

Less dead people is a pretty good metric for drug development.

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1. heavyset_go ◴[] No.40174682[source]
In sane countries, HIV drugs cost dozens of dollars per month. In the US, those same HIV drugs retail for thousands of dollars for only a 30-day supply.

Similarly, companies that patent HIV drugs purposely hold off on bringing new, better drugs to market until the patents for their old drugs expire. For example, Gilead held on to Descovy and timed its launch to conveniently match up with the patent expiration of their drug Truvada. It's planned obsolescence in drug form.

Truvada had common complications like kidney damage and failure, and bone density loss, that Descovy mitigated. Had Gilead brought Descovy to market sooner, instead of holding on to it until Truvada's patent expiration, people could have had the option to choose between the two drugs, and those at risk of complications wouldn't have received needless kidney damage/failure and bone deterioration from their only option on the market.

During Truvada's patent period, Gilead raised prices practically every year, and a drug that already cost $2k a month suddenly cost over $4,500 a month towards the end of its patent protection period. In other countries, it cost $40.

Gilead is now doing the same thing with Descovy, charging $2,600 a month with rising prices for a drug that costs far less in sane countries.

Just because things might be "better", doesn't mean they're perfect, and doesn't mean they don't need to improve.

As an aside, these are drugs that prevent the acquisition of HIV in the first place. AIDS could virtually be eradicated in the US if HIV prophylaxis was widespread and affordable.