>But it's a tricky thing because we don't wanna remove the incentive to invent new drugs.
What incentive is there to produce new drugs when they are making plenty of money gouging people on price with the old drugs?
What incentive is there to produce new drugs when they are making plenty of money gouging people on price with the old drugs?
They also have a patent on Descovy, but Descovy is not on the market for PrEP.
Right now, a month's supply of Truvada costs $1800. Six months ago, it cost $1400.
Truvada has a considerable amount of damaging side-effects that prevent many people from taking the medication, and cause harm to those who do take it. Truvada is hard on the kidneys, so much so that patients have their kidney screened every 3 months while taking the drug. Truvada is also hard on people's bones. Brittleness and fractures can happen. The medication can and has damaged people's bodies.
Descovy isn't without side-effects, but the drug doesn't harm the kidneys and bones as much as Truvada.
However, the patent for Truvada doesn't expire until 2020. Gilead has been dragging its feet for years when it comes to introducing Descovy for PrEP. A lawsuit alleges that Gilead is purposely timing their introduction of Descovy for PrEP to line up with Truvada's patent expiration[1].
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/mass-tort-alleges-...
Along the same lines, why invent a cure, when you could instead invent a lifelong treatment?
The existence of the vaccine industry demonstrates there is a market for a cure. As do immunotherapies. Where cures are possible, they are commercialized.
Off the top of my head: Planned obsolescence is a thing. Whole companies of people in India calling your house trying to trick you into buying computer-virus protection is a thing. Entire nations conspiring to steal industry secrets from other countries is a thing. Operation Mockingbird was/is a thing. General corruption is a thing and people working together when they have common goals is a thing.
So what's your point in saying that something sounds like a "conspiracy theory" when there are clearly many, many people conspiring to do wrong all the time?
And the existence of the vaccine industry does not prove that cures are always commercialized when possible.
For once, the health industry works on planning its own obsolescence (as it should, generally), and a major conspiracy theory pops up countering the trend...
Another domain you didn't mention: imagine the crisis in the food and distribution industry if everyone started having a healthy diet overnight... While those sectors may not have started the obesity epidemics deliberately, they now rely on its expansion for growth.
https://fortune.com/2019/02/05/pfizer-pneumonia-vaccine-trea...
To not be glib: first, Prevnar is an outlier (https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-report/5-prevnar-13) and lack of profitability in basic vaccines is a public health problem in terms of investment in R&D and producer concentration https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2002/fall/vaccines.html (dated link but still accurate). They aren't like normal pharma in terms of their margins and R&D profile. You develops something for macular degeneration and it's a one off that can be depreciated. Influenza and some others require international monitoring, forecasting, sample collection and new work every season. It's closer to biologics or genetic therapies in terms of cost of revenue, but priced nowhere near that because of the economies of scale and, frankly, social responsibility of the producers.
And the global vaccine market is work $32B right now, so there is obviously a lot of profit being made.[1]
[1]https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vaccine-market-size...
You're mixing market cap with annual sales. Twitter's revenue was $2.61B last year.
You are confused about terminology. Vaccines don’t cure. They are preventative.
It wouldn't surprise me one tiny bit, given the US' track record with letting corporations do whatever the hell they want to, to people.
I'm not saying it's true, but you can't simply dismiss a theory about the corporate world screwing over the American people with a simple "no way that's too ridiculous to ever happen", any more. Especially if it's directly in line with what the free market would demand, as well as it not happening being contingent on a corporation being "nice" from the good of its "heart".
Please tell me instead that it's false because there is regulation in place, or there is some strong market force making them take the other route.
Because your implied argument would be "that is inhumane and corporations wouldn't do that"--now THAT is embarrassing.
Why would drug companies develop those cures? Because they can market them at quite high prices and still save insurers money (and it is an improvement over the long term treatments that exist, and so on).
Here’s two reasons:
1. Because consumers will likely prefer a cure to a lifelong treatment
2. Because your lifelong treatment is going to be out of patent before you can collect on a lifetime of purchases.
- Completely destroy competitor's lifelong treatments
- Can be sold at a higher price
- Will help you make best use of your 20 year patent
- If particularly effective, will get you priority on drug testing, grants,... and good publicity.