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Comment by curt | Hacker News Reader

Wrong mind set, they could easily charge 100k+ for the treatment and insurance companies would still jump for joy since it's cheaper over the long run.

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Surely a cure to an otherwise generally terminal illness is worth 100k though. I know I would be grateful to pay such a price, the alternative seems to be no cure, and eventual death.

I'm sure there are tons of people who would be grateful to be in a position to be able to pay such a price.

I think a company would be hard-pressed to have a pill that cures cancer -- letting millions die each year, because the pill costs $100k. I think there's a non-trivial possibility that the gov't would take that drug for its own uses.

"I think there's a non-trivial possibility that the gov't would take that drug for its own uses."

Is there precedent for such a thing?

not in the US, AFAIK, but Brazil broke an AIDS treatment patent license to generically deliver drugs to it's poor:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18490388/ns/health-aids/t/brazil...

Apparently when the negotiations broke down (Brazil wanted the same rate as Thailand but Merck wanted to charge them more), Brazil declared sovereign property rights in the good of it's citizens.

We've come close in the US:

http://www.fool.com/news/2001/bayzf011025.htm

This was for Cipro for Anthrax. Bayer, at the last minute, gave in to some pricing concessions. There's also been talks about it happening during some H1N1 and avian flu scares.

A $100k pill that cures cancer? I'm not saying it would be taken by the gov't, but I think you'd have to seriously consider it.

Dialysis was in the same position long ago. A miracle cure, but few could afford it.

Today it is the one treatment that is fully covered by the government for everyone. I would imagine something similar would occur here.

No they wouldn't there are a lot of procedures that cost more than a 100k (any transplant, open heart, high end implants are more). Really the government and insurance companies would save a fortune if the cure cost between 100k - 200k.

Not really a great deal if 20 years of therapeutic treatments would bring in more than that 100k for the "one time" cure.

Also not advocating there is some conspiracy going on here.

offtopic -- just curious, are you http://cr.yp.to/djb.html or somebody else?

The two agents of interest here are the person paying for the cure and the person buying it.

The person paying for the cure, usually and insurance company, wants it to be as cheap as possible.

The person selling the cure is probably not the same between the two treatment scenarios.

The hospital administering the treatments might have a motive, but they aren't involved in the decisions about whether to go ahead with research.

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