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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

"gilead the makers of Harvoni literally made a cure for a previously uncureable disease"

No, they acquired Pharmasset, the company that made the cure, for $11.2B. That was a pretty low-risk move. It was already an obvious money maker.

"for all the RnD that went into doing that"

In the 18 months following Sovaldi’s approval, Medicare alone spent $8.2 billion on the drugs...that doesn't include private insurance payments. I imagine the acquisition was paid off quite quickly. Pricing after that was just how much profit they wanted to make.

See these for more detail:

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wyden-Grassley%...

https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-gr...

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> No, they acquired Pharmasset, the company that made the cure, for $11.2B. That was a pretty low-risk move. It was already an obvious money maker.

Before I was a software developer I was in equity research, and one of the companies that we covered was Pharmasset. The whole point of these research companies is to find a winner and be acquired.

I get that it's low risk for the acquirer, but without that big payout the research and trials won't get done by the small companies, who won't be able to raise funding, etc.

Presumably at least some of the seed funding for these research facilities is from the majors, who likely in turn lease research capacity to them. Interesting model

I pointed it out because it brings some clarity to what the R&D actual costs are, and thus some clarity to whether gouging is happening.

Isn't this evidence in the other direction: if the drug already existed and was acquired for $11 billion, then that suggests that they expect the profit to be about $11 billion. Otherwise, wouldn't they bid up the price more?

In the 18 months following Sovaldi’s approval, Medicare alone spent $8.2 billion on the drug.

I know that's revenue and not profit, but that doesn't even include private insurance, self pay, or sales outside the US.

Wrong. Gilead made Harvoni. Pharmasset made Sovaldi.

Is there something that’s supposed to be inherently evil in acquiring a company anyway?

Because pharmasset, the smaller company, had forecasted a price of 36000$ for Solvadi. With Gilead buying it out, it was able to reach a third of that price point and that’s a win to me.

Harvoni is a combination of Sofosbuvir (Sovaldi) and Ledipasvir.

Pharmasset discovered Sofosbuvir (Sovaldi), Gilead acquired them in 2011.

Gilead developed Ledipasvir some time after that.

I was contesting the phrase "literally made a cure for a previously uncureable disease". Which is why I called out the acquisition. They literally bought it, not made it.

Here in Canada there is some debate over sofosbuvir and velpatasvir their cost. A person may be cured of hepatitis C in just a few months. That would be fantastic for them since done soon enough may prevent liver fibrosis. And really for the tax payers here in socialized medical land it saves money by not treating infected people for decades.

> Is there something that’s supposed to be inherently evil in acquiring a company anyway?

See the fable the little red hen. It's work ethics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen

> Pricing after that was just how much profit they wanted to make.

While that's by definition true of any pricing decision, there's a lot more to the story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21883254#21884030

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