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

(www.theguardian.com)
275 points swores | 5 comments | 25 Apr 24 12:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.335s | source
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kazinator ◴[26 Apr 24 21:03 UTC] No.40174260[source]▶
The cost of developing drugs is high because of all the drugs that fail, after requiring lots of money to develop. You can't just look at the successful drug and say that's the cost. There are drugs that don't get to the trial stage, so also you can't just look at trials, even if you include failed ones.

The researchers cited in this article seem to be promulgating the fallacy that we need only look at the cost of a successful drug trial, and that's the cost. The drugs magically appeared out of nowhere, for free, and equally magically, they are working drugs, so we already know our trial will succeed. It's just a charade we have to go pay for to get the government's rubber stamp, and then it's all good!

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1. redserk ◴[26 Apr 24 22:39 UTC] No.40175091[source]▶
What about the public funding that led to research and presumably went towards some of the failed attempts?

It sounds like there’s simply not enough information to gauge if pharmaceutical companies are being honest about their claims of R&D costs.

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2. lotsofpulp ◴[26 Apr 24 23:13 UTC] No.40175362[source]▶
There is nothing stopping governments around the world from spending money to do their own R&D and conduct their clinical trials.
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3. kazinator ◴[26 Apr 24 23:49 UTC] No.40175598[source]▶
If the government hands out grants, about which information is subsequently hard to get, that points to a gaping transparency issue squarely on the government side.

Pharma R&D companies that are publicly listed should have some information about their balance sheets.

Private equity ones are going to be the most opaque. That's kind of their prerogative.

4. rysertio ◴[27 Apr 24 00:36 UTC] No.40175954[source]▶
They do. But then the patents gets leeched by big pharma companies investing a fraction of the development costs.
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5. lotsofpulp ◴[27 Apr 24 01:19 UTC] No.40176213{3}[source]▶
Why does the government allow big pharma companies to “leech” the patent? What does that even mean? Can you describe the steps by which big pharma obtains the patent?