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Comment by wileydragonfly | Hacker News Reader

Still ridiculously expensive. This sells for virtually nothing as a “research chemical.”

Reminds me of the markups on AZT back in the day.

It's an interesting industry that needs billions to bring a new drug to market. At the same time it creates a lot of value to a patient. But the manufacturing of a single dose is usually tiny.

Now how do you price that? The profits here will reward pharma investors and enable more investments in RnD of new medicines. I feel that's mostly fair.

Some types of software aren't too far from that paradigm.

The typical other solution for this is government grants for research.

It could work but there are problems in (1) the amount of money required and (2) the funding research -> getting votes pipeline is borked (credit assignment in general is borked).

Incentive is would be research forever without any results. See how expensive NASA programs were.

They went to the moon - that's not no results.

The 'risk' here is often carried by publicly funded research. ~6.2 billion for glp

The private 'investment' comes in manufacturing, scale and marketing.

Novo Nordisk has spent 41% more on shareholder enrichment (buybacks and dividends) than on R&D over the past five years.

> Novo Nordisk has spent 41% more on shareholder enrichment (buybacks and dividends) than on R&D over the past five years.

So they are good stewards of their funds and know they can't deploy as much as they have? Berkshire Hathaway does the same thing.

Is Berkshire Hathaway able to monitize the output of government funded research as effectively?

I'm assuming by “research chemical” you mean "counterfeit chemical" - Quite a signal for society, of individuals willing to inject themselves with these due to lack of funds or lack of effort.

Not everything is counterfeit.

That analogy would hold if a counterfeit dollar were perfectly identical to a real dollar, totally indistinguishable, and nobody could possibly tell the difference. Most of the "research chemical" drugs out there are chemically identical to the marked-up pharmaceutical products. Not similar, identical.

They are literally synthesized drugs that are not from the manufacturer.

They are synthesized drugs that are from a different manufacturer. (Usually synthesized the same way, via the same methods.)

> Not similar, identical.

Without coming from the manufacturer or being validated by an independent, trusted third party, you do not know that the chemical composition is what is purported.

When you are buying chemicals from unknown entities you are adopting the enormous risks that come with it.

Drug synthesis can get very complicated. Purity of the drug is unknown.

Which contaminants are present and what are their effects on your body? Unknown.

What if any recourse do you have if they poison you? Minimal to none.

Even if you have a trusted third party doing efficacious testing of the compounds, the consistency of manufacture will be unknown unless they also do inspections. While I have no doubt that you can have private entity do a far better job than the FDA if the incentives are right there will be no business there. Perhaps a charity could work? I have no idea how though.

If it's not misleading to buyers, it's not a "counterfeit".

I would say that it seems the vast majority of buyers on social media are convinced the drugs are coming from Eli Lilly & are being bought through "research" loopholes.

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