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Canada's Ebola Vaccine Nets Millions For Tiny US Biotech Firm

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-fun-and-games-until-somebody-loses-several-internal-organs dept.

Anita Hunt (lissnup) writes: Iowa-based NewLink Genetics has secured a US$50million deal with pharmaceutical giant Merck for the experimental Ebola vaccine developed by Canadian government scientists. NewLink bought the exclusive commercial licensing rights to Canada's VSV-EBOV in 2010 with a milestone payment of just US$205,000. This is an interesting new twist in a story we've discussed previously, and which continues to draw media attention.

70 comments

  1. Big business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "It's a big club, and you ain't in it!"

    1. Re:Big business by sholden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      NewLink Genetics didn't seem that big.

      Canada just made a very bad deal with them. Then again hindsight and all that, an unproven ebola vaccine was worth less in 2010 than in 2014...

    2. Re:Big business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yay capitalism!

    3. Re:Big business by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 0

      dot dot dot says the ac, typing from a phone or tablet or pc, over probably wireless to powerful internet backbones, all developed with literally trillions in private investment.

      I "Canadian government scientists" developed it, then who dropped the ball?

      Also, you giant government lovers, why did it take an outbreak to fast track production levels of experimental drug? The FDA, and Canadian equivalent, are the biggest mass murderers of the past century. Deaths due to cumulative tech lag vastly outweigh deaths due to drugs getting to market too fast. The math is trivial.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    4. Re:Big business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe, just maybe, the Canadian lab sold low out of altruism - ya know, because it IS a vaccine for a deadly incurable illness after all. Believe it or not, not every single person in the world is a profit-driven capitalist, although I know that's hard for Americans to grasp.

    5. Re:Big business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't be an asshole. Americans understand altruism very well.

      Altruism doesn't prevent an agency from getting back funds from a corporate buyer which can then be reinvested into more research.

      Of course, as someone else pointed out, perhaps they simply got the best deal they could in 2010 for a vaccine for a disease no one outside of Africa really considered more than a vague threat.

    6. Re:Big business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      NewLink Genetics didn't seem that big.

      Canada just made a very bad deal with them. Then again hindsight and all that, an unproven ebola vaccine was worth less in 2010 than in 2014...

      The Prime Minister is anti-science so I suspect he doubted the ebola vaccine would prove useful. The fact a private company will set the price of the vaccine developed by taxpayer-funded research is egregious.

  2. Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by dywolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...since it's no longer the crisis du jour.

    What with the elections over, everyone stopped talking about it.
    Like it magically no longer mattered. And the disease just went away.
    (of course, it'll raging in Africa...but apparently we dont care about that)

    And the promised massive epidemic sweeping the nation....never materialized.
    Why, it's almost like all those people at the CDC....they actually knew what they were talking about....after 40 years of experience....

    I'm just shocked. Absolutely shocked that a virus whos primary factor in transmission is poor hygeine in poor countries couldnt stand up to the healthcare system in an advanced nation...or even the US*. And all that fear mongering, and calls for travels bans, and mandatory quarentines for people who werent sick wasnt necessary.

    SHOCKING I SAY!

    Hmmm. I wonder if the talking heads and politicians will ever get around to admitting they were wrong, and apologizing.

    (*its a joke! lighten up)

    --
    The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    1. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (*its a joke! lighten up)

      It's funny because it's true.

    2. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by geekmux · · Score: 1

      ...And the promised massive epidemic sweeping the nation....never materialized. Why, it's almost like all those people at the CDC....they actually knew what they were talking about....after 40 years of experience....

      Uh, I hope you were joking here too, since according to the very organization you cite here, we should be rapidly approaching around half a million cases of Ebola by January. I believe they were the first (only?) people to come to the table with infection estimates north of a million. Of course, the news orgs will do their best to sensationalize that, but it does not change the source.

      This is also the same organization clearing infected people to fly on commercial airplanes, as well as defining what "good enough" PPE is, while caregivers get infected, or did we forget about that stuff too...

      And from what we know about curing Ebola, we really don't have shit in cumulative experience. Our ability to handle it nor the fatality rate hasn't changed much since 1976. We've merely been lucky for almost 40 years, being considerably less fortunate with outbreaks this year.

    3. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have plenty of experience curing it. But even good cures can overwhelmed by epidemics and people hiding their sickness.

    4. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      We have no experience curing Ebola.

      We have lots of experience trying to keep people alive while what's left of their immune system defeats the virus.

      It helps if the people who catch it are fit and well before they catch it.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    5. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      We have no experience curing Ebola.

      We have lots of experience trying to keep people alive while what's left of their immune system defeats the virus.

      It helps if the people who catch it are fit and well before they catch it.

      You know most diseases aren't cured by drugs, but by the immune system. The drugs just help out by making you feel better so you don't feel so terrible and harm your immune system. E.g., the painkillers and all that make it easier to get rest so you're not so worn down that your immune system is compromised.

      And Ebola talk died down because people were freaking out over it, when in fact they're far more likely to die of influenza than Ebola. Yes, the flu has killed an order of magnitude more people in the US than Ebola has worldwide.

      Oh yeah, it helps if you catch the flu that you're fit and well too. The people that die from the flu generally are immunocompromised or vulnerable. Enterovirus D68 (part of the influenza family) is particularly deadly to children and it's huge so far.

      Ebola outcomes are more successful in the western world because we have access to clean drinking water - Ebola works by wreaking havoc by causing the blood vessels to leak, so being able to get fluids into the body means the person has a fighting chance at living.

    6. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by professionalfurryele · · Score: 1

      "It helps if the people who catch it are fit and well before they catch it."

      Depends on what you mean by fit and well. Being seriously immunocompromised probably wont help, but a major way Ebola kills is by triggering a cytokine storm. Ebola attacks the immune system in a very unpleasant way inhibiting many of the standard responses to a viral infection. As a result when confronted by Ebola the immune system often responds with its last resort 'WMD', a cytokine storm which might be described as setting the immune system into overdrive killing both the Ebola virus and healthy cells in a desperate scorched earth attack. Because this run away process is basically the immune system acting with maximum ferocity the healthier and stronger your immune system the more damage it does. If you have a particularly strong immune system then the onset of a cytokine storm just kills you.

    7. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he pointed out that hygiene standards are lower in Africa. This isn't actually news, or controversial, you know. It just so happens that most of the people in West and Central Africa are black.

      People were catching Ebola from washing dead bodies and they have been having trouble convincing people to not wash the dead bodies with the dread disease. There's not a high likelihood of that happening in the US.

    8. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been to Liberia a couple times. Those people are both very black and very filthy. That is simply a fact. Generalizing that to all black people would be racist, but he didn't do that. I could further educate you on the cultural differences that cause a lot of their problems, but I doubt you could understand the difference between race and culture and so you would just wave your hands and call me racist too.

    9. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by dywolf · · Score: 1

      No im not forgetting anything. the CDC's definition and list of procedures is all but irrelevent if the people performing it arent adequately trained and prepared, as was the case at the Texas hospital. again, the blame lies in the local hospital making a series of errors and mistakes. an expert giving you advice directions is all but irrelevent if you dont listen him, which is pretty much the core point i was making.

      as for luck, we have been lucky only in the fact its rarely travelled outside Africa. our ability to deal with the disease depends drastically ont he quality of hte health system being used. but you missed that as well: there is a vast difference between capability of the health care systems in the affected African countries and the health care systems of Europe and the US.

      They often lack adequate space over there, quickly running out of space to put the patients. Many patients get treated at home, with and by familiy members.
      They lack funding.
      They lack even basic drugs to control blood pressure, a core part of helping the body fight the disease, and something even the smalled outpatient clinics have access to.
      And msot importantly, they lack doctors and nurses, personal to actually treat the sick. We have 2.5 doctors per 1000 people in the US. In Liberia they have 0.014 per 1000, or 1.4 doctors for every 100k people.

      These are things that we take for granted, but they dont have over there, which makes fighting the disease harder and is why they get overwhelmed.
      That's the point: it has a really high mortality rate...in Africa.

      But it's long been held that our systems being better equipped, better staffed, and better prepared, would haev much much more success in fighting any outbreak. And while the sample size is still small, it has thus far been born out.

      Because its not yet a matter of the curing the disease.
      The best tool in fighting Ebola is still our own body's immune system.
      The trick is keeping it healthy and strong enough to be able to fight off the infection (thats where those blood pressure meds come in, as BP can plummet as organs struggle and fail, causing a cascade failure in the body). And our health care systems are simply better equipped for that.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    10. Re:Oh yeah, almost forgot about Ebola... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of the Swine Flu when it was big. The fatality rate was really high among healthy males, but lower in women and children, a first for the flu. But the problem was that it was in Mexico, primarily in poor farmers. They woke up sick. They had the choice to quit their job and slowly die of starvation when they can't find a job, or go to work and probably survive the cold they had. They had the flu. They worked the fields until they dropped dead. In the US, we panicked. Then it came to the US. I got it. It wasn't even the worst flu I've ever had. The statistics returned to "normal" once it was common in larger populations that more resembled the average.

      Ebola is a death sentence in Africa. That hasn't been true in the US. And likely wouldn't be, even with a wider spread.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  3. 50 MILLION DOLLARS! by Thanshin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To read the topic you have to first put a little finger near your mouth.

    Merck Revenue in 2011 alone was a thousand times that.

    The first $500k of the deal were to pay the golden pen they used to sign it. The second $500K, paid dinner, cognac, cigars and the first round of whores.

    1. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're just pissed that you didn't get some whore action for buying the new pills on the market, Doc!

    2. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by sholden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Merck revenue is irrelevant.

      Flipping something that cost you $205,000 for $50,000,000 is the relevant part. That usually makes the guy who sold you it for $205,000 look a little stupid.

      Of course an experimental ebola vaccine wasn't worth that much in 2010 since the Africans needing it then didn't have lots of cash to pay for it. However, $200k isn't a huge amount of money for a government either, so you would hope the reason for selling the rights was so that a private party would actually do something to move the thing forward rather than just sitting on it and doing nothing until a white guy got infected and the ebola money jackpot triggered.

    3. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Merck's revenue in 2011 was just over € 10 billion, or about 250 times US$ 50 million

    4. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      The ultimate optimist in me is secretly hoping that people who just want to get some good done in the world are playing the selfish idiots' paranoia to reduce a long-standing humanitarian issue.

    5. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by the+gnat · · Score: 1

      Of course an experimental ebola vaccine wasn't worth that much in 2010 since the Africans needing it then didn't have lots of cash to pay for it.

      Also: it's experimental, which by definition means that someone has to invest a lot of time and money figuring out if it actually works. Drug companies license experimental therapies like this all the time. Nine times out of ten (probably more), they're buying something that turns out to be worthless. When they actually get hold of something that really works, of course it looks like a steal in retrospect, but there's no way to predict that in advance. (Although I do sometimes wonder why academic IP holders don't push for profit-sharing agreements more often.)

    6. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by kaladorn · · Score: 1

      As a Canadian, I am curious why that original deal was inked and what dictated the cost structure. I'm going to guess $205,000 may not have even paid back development costs so it may have been a price intended to recoup a small portion of expenses or simply to make the product more openly available.

      It's a travest that it is now going to be manufactured for $50M or so it seems without the benefit of understanding the technical complexity of manufacturing it. The facility would have to be secure physically and in terms of any risks of outside exposure/escape. I'm curious how many units $50M is going to buy and how much the will in turn sell for.

      If that cost is more reasonable than it seems likely to be, based on the actual cost of facilities and so on to manufacture this and total volume of production, then perhaps this $50M is just alarming because it seems large.

      I do think Canada should not be selling exclusive license to any such development as it may be needed and we don't want anyone hoarding and overpricing it. We should have sold a non-exclusive license.

      --
      -- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
    7. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Businesses are not fond of buying licenses like that.

      Perhaps it was in the Canadian government's interest to have a non-exclusive license, but let's face it, if Canada is having a bad enough emergency, they'll just pass a law suspending the exclusive agreement and get it done. No government is stupid enough to let itself truly be held hostage in an acute crisis by some pissant corporation.

      What is more likely is that the small corp will be "convinced" to suspend or sub-license to to other corps who can make it. Heck, they may even want to do that, since having other corps manufacture the drug means that their cut of the sub-license fee would be essentially money that they'd never have been able to make on their own due to their limited production capabilities.

      People often make the mistake of believing that a monopoly is the most lucrative way of doing business. Over the long term, perhaps it is, because a monopoly has probably built up or acquired sufficient production capacity. This little corp most likely does not have the needed production facilities to pump out enough for a whole public health program.

      You can't sell what you can't produce and you also can't sell what no one can afford. Licensing your intellectual property and collecting money on top of other producers' efforts is how you make that sort of money.

      There is a top end price point that the vaccine will reach where other expensive therapies will start to become more cost effective. At that point, you have to move inventory, you can't just make one vial and sell it for a billion dollars.

    8. Re:50 MILLION DOLLARS! by CanEHdian · · Score: 1

      That usually makes the guy who sold you it for $205,000 look a little stupid.

      A little? Make that VERY stupid -- unless the seller(s) got something out of it personally, which would make it illegal. NEVER license exclusively unless you make sure you have leveraged the upside potential.

      --
      When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
  4. Mixed feelings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    On one hand, I'm glad there is such good progress at countering the latest high mortality disease.

    On the other hand, I'm already seeing the kind of horrible drug advertisements that could come from this.*

    *warning: Thinking about the horrible drug advertisements may result in depression, alcoholism, thoughts of suicide, thoughts of genocide, thoughts of regicide, high blood pressure, osteophytes, accelerated heart rate, decreased heart rate, heart tempo based on Beethoven's 7th Symphony, or spontaneous human combustion. All other symptoms similar to sugar pill.

  5. We got your Ebola right here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot Deals is the biggest dealer in Ebola! Cheap, Cheap, Cheap!

  6. FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And all that fear mongering, and calls for travels bans, and mandatory quarentines for people who werent sick

    A little less FOX NEWS would help you keep a perspective on things.

    1. Re:FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately all the news networks were doing it. Gotta fill that 24 hour news cycle somehow. Though Faux News was definitely spewing the most loony bullshit.

    2. Re:FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by dywolf · · Score: 1

      unfortunateley, while Fox was the epicenter of the worst of the nutjobbery, everyone got in on the act.

      and Fox actually had one of the shining lights of rationality in Shep Smith.
      its just too bad his fellow employees didnt listen to him, and kept spouting crackpotterys about how Obama wanted us to be infected to make us feel Africa's pain....

      But Shep Smith has a sort of record for being that voice ( http://mediamatters.org/blog/2... ), and its a bit amazing that he still has his job after not towing the company line. Like when he went off on another Fox guy for condoning and dismissing torture.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    3. Re:FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by dywolf · · Score: 1

      BTW, have you heard? The new Benghazi report is out.
      And Fox has already uncovered the sorry truth:
      The White House has apparently gotten to the House GOP somehow, and made them part of the conspiracy/coverup.
      This thing runs so deep that even Mike Rogers and Darrel Issa are part of it!

      I mean, it's the only way to explain a final report that debunks rather than confirms all their conspiracy theories about the incident.

      And its just amazing how competent and clever at conspriacies this incomepetent and ignorant adminstration is.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    4. Re:FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy fuck! I better lock myself in my bomb shelter!!!'

    5. Re:FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by geekoid · · Score: 1

      He is there token voice of reason.
      All the fear monger shows have one in order to seem like that are fair and balanced.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    6. Re:FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      The best thing is when they intentionally play off sane, informed people as denialistic nutters a la "Ancient Aliens"

    7. Re:FOX NEWS is bad for your mental health by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy fuck! I better lock myself in my bomb shelter!!!'

      I'm sorry Anonymous Coward. I cannot let you do that." JCN2014. By the way did you sample the Jello?

  7. "Experimental Vaccine" by MagickalMyst · · Score: 1

    You first.

    --
    Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
    1. Re:"Experimental Vaccine" by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

      You first.

      It will probably be the military first. They're already being sent into Ebola-ravaged African countries for ... "support". And they always get the experimental drugs tried on them before the general public.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    2. Re:"Experimental Vaccine" by MagickalMyst · · Score: 1

      Except the anti-fertility vaccines. They are reserved for the general public. Oops, did I say that out loud?

      --
      Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
  8. Re:The GayWADs want you!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ** GayWAD membership kit no longer includes HIV self-test catheter.

    WTF! We were promised a catheter!

    I'm amazed that such a respectable institution would lower their standards like that.

  9. Evil Harper Government by pipingguy · · Score: 1

    Hey, I thought there was a "War on Science" by the evil Harper Government. How could these government scientists have done something good?

    1. Re:Evil Harper Government by Piata · · Score: 2, Informative

      By not having Harper involved. This doesn't conflict with the oil sands so the Evil Harper Government doesn't care. Of course you could say someone's head should be rolling for allowing a government funded vaccine to be sold off to a US corp for a pittance (which is what the article is about).

    2. Re:Evil Harper Government by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a Canadian and this is shocking and disgusting to me plain and simple.

      This is in fact the most disappointed I've ever been in my government

    3. Re:Evil Harper Government by Livius · · Score: 1

      Because giving Canadian things away to the Americans is more important to Harper.

  10. As a Canadian taxpayer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...you're welcome, Merck. That's all I've got.

  11. Newlink's license invalid? by LeadSongDog · · Score: 1

    It would seem from http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/e... last week's coverage that Newlink had already violated the terms of their license. Seems like they sat on it as long as possible, then sublicensed to Merck. At this point though, who cares about the lousy $50M, they should just get on with producing the fricking stuff while testing in parallel.

    --
    Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
    1. Re:Newlink's license invalid? by DRJlaw · · Score: 2

      It would seem from http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/e... last week's coverage that Newlink had already violated the terms of their license.

      How would it seem so, since the very article that you link says "BioProtection Systems Corporation (BPS), now a wholly owned subsidiary of NewLink Genetics Inc., has performed at or above expectations thus far." Outside critics don't get to retroactively cancel a contract signed five years ago because progress under the contract doesn't meet their post-hoc expectations.

      Seems like they sat on it as long as possible, then sublicensed to Merck.

      Funny, the very article that you linked to says that "[l]ast week, we announced the beginning of clinical trials of the vaccine in Canada." Do you have any direct knowledge of the typical work and time involved in setting up clinical safety trials? I doubt it. Note the following:

      Preclinical Testing: A pharmaceutical company conducts certain studies before the future drug is ever given to a human being. Laboratory and animal studies must be done to demonstrate the biological activity of the drug against the targeted disease. The drug must also be evaluated for safety. These tests take on the average 3 1/2 years.

      At this point though, who cares about the lousy $50M,

      TFA.

      [T]hey should just get on with producing the fricking stuff while testing in parallel.

      Because mass producing an experimental drug that has not been shown to be safe, much less effective, in vivo goes against more than a half century's worth of applied medical knowledge and ethics, notwithstanding the losses you would suffer if you stockpiled a drug that failed clinical trials? But hey, you can assume safety since nobody has been hurt yet, right?

  12. Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Rick+in+China · · Score: 1

    Come on - doesn't this emphasize the crisis in US pharma that is so easily ignored? Canada creates a highly viable experimental vaccine for a very dangerous and scary virus, and US pharmaceuticals seek to pwn it up in their own market. The rest of the world wont be fucked by the Canadian government - they'll make it readily available...because the rest of the world doesn't suffer from getting fucked on pricing by the US pharma lobby and policies around it.

    When I arrived in China, I was shocked at how cheap US pharmaceuticals were (authentic ones, not fake ones, of course). Why? They don't have the ability of collusion in the market place and the funny thing is: the free(er) market on pharmaceuticals means lots of competitive and chemically identical or near-identical in the functional sense products all over the market, so the ridiculous pricing schemes that work in the US simply don't work here. Free market indeed, it's funny when the market is far freer in a politically communist nation, and so many Americans point to China and say "COMMUNISSSTTTSSSS"!

    I was also amused when I walked into a hospital, got an x-ray, took the x-rays home, and it cost me about $12 including a brief consult all in - and about 30 minutes of my time.

    1. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by the+gnat · · Score: 1

      Free market indeed, it's funny when the market is far freer in a politically communist nation

      China has a huge number of trade barriers, including price caps on pharmaceuticals. The other half of the "free(er) market" you're describing is a failure to enforce IP rights (or, possibly, failure by companies to file the relevant patent applications in China, but that seems unlikely), so that pharma companies are having to compete with generic products that would be illegal in the US. You can applaud this if you like, but it's not generally considered a good environment for inventing new drugs.

    2. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Free market indeed, it's funny when the market is far freer in a politically communist nation

      China has a huge number of trade barriers, including price caps on pharmaceuticals. The other half of the "free(er) market" you're describing is a failure to enforce IP rights (or, possibly, failure by companies to file the relevant patent applications in China, but that seems unlikely), so that pharma companies are having to compete with generic products that would be illegal in the US. You can applaud this if you like, but it's not generally considered a good environment for inventing new drugs.

      That's the point people generally make -- but look at the context of the article you're commenting about -- the drug in this case was invented in Canada, paid for by Canadian taxpayers, and then rights were sold pretty much at-cost to a US company to test and develop it -- and they didn't. Now they've given it a 25x markup and sold those rights off to Merck (which is against the original contract).

      So... which is a better environment for inventing new drugs? The one in which there's an even playing field with generics (meaning the drug actually has to be /new/, not just newly patentable), or the one that fails to invent the new drug because it's not profitable enough, and then buys the rights to develop it from a humanitarian source when it suddenly looks profitable?

    3. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Rich0 · · Score: 2

      Canada creates a highly viable experimental vaccine for a very dangerous and scary virus, and US pharmaceuticals seek to pwn it up in their own market.

      The distinction is that Canada did NOT create an FDA-approved vaccine. The difference between a vaccine and an FDA-approved vaccine is that you have to start with about 15 of the former and spend $100M on each to end up with just one of the latter, typically.

      Commercial pharma companies sell each other early discovery compounds on the cheap all the time, so it isn't really a scandal when governments sell them. Early drug candidates don't cost much because it turns out that 95% of them don't work.

      Imagine that a hurricane floods out a car dealership. A week later the water has drained away. An auction is held for all the cars on the lot. Do you think they will sell for their sticker prices? They'll certainly sell, but for a fraction of what they would get in undamaged condition.

      Now imagine that you take a lot full of 1000 flooded cars. You perform a complete teardown and inspection on all of them. You end up with 990 cars that are in horrible condition, and 10 that by some miracle happened to get through with minimal damage. Now if you auction them all individually the 990 will sell for their value as scrap (even less than the average price paid sight unseen), and the 10 will sell competitively to ordinary used cars. The cars didn't change at all, but the knowledge of them did change.

      Another example is buying vintage packs of baseball cards and such. The pack sells for a value that represents the average likely value of its contents. If you open it up the contents instantly become either much less valuable, or much more valuable.

      It is no different for drugs. If you take a bunch of research leads they might all look equally promising, but after you invest millions in clinical trials it becomes apparent which ones will make money. If you sell your lead at the beginning you get a lot less for it. On the other hand, if you hold onto it you might find you held onto a bunch of junk cards when you could have gotten a portion of the value of a prized card for it.

    4. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      That's the point people generally make -- but look at the context of the article you're commenting about -- the drug in this case was invented in Canada, paid for by Canadian taxpayers, and then rights were sold pretty much at-cost to a US company to test and develop it

      Setting aside the breach of contract angle, keep in mind that the cost to test and develop a drug is actually the vast majority of the total cost to bring it to market.

      It is a bit like saying that I sold my conceptual art drawing of a flying car to Ford for $100k and they went on and made millions on an actual flying car. The art drawing might have gone into the design, but there is a lot more to a flying car than a painting. Even an untested design isn't worth a whole lot, because the company buying it may test it only to find that it doesn't work.

      The work required to bring an Apple Newton and an Apple iPad to market could very well be the same. That doesn't mean that the rights to market either are going to sell for the same price.

    5. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Indeed -- the main cost is actually in all the testing, not in the conceptual (or actual) development -- this is where I started with my comment.

      In this case however, there was no testing done that I can see; instead of putting the money into testing it, they sat on it until they could sell it to Merck -- who bought it for significantly more than it would have cost to test.

      They weren't handed the equivalent of a concept drawing -- it was more like they were handed a concept car plus the facility to fabricate it, and then had to get the certifications done and ramp up production. Instead, they sat on it and re-sold to a larger manufacturer when it became lucrative.

      I don't know about you, but I don't want my health bought and sold the same way my car is.

      The MessagePad/iPad thing is an interesting angle, but completely outside the discussion: having been around during the development of both, I can guarantee you the MessagePad was much harder to bring to market, and much more expensive, with a smaller market to capture. The iPad of course has much higher rights to market, due to the significantly larger market (and cheaper R&D/testing, comparatively). And this is what we saw here: when Merck saw that the market for an Ebola vaccine had suddenly blossomed, they were willing to throw money at it due to the anticipated ability to corner the larger market, or at least get a significant leg up on the competition. I presume the idea is that they paid more than it would have cost for the small firm to do the testing/certification/production themselves, to make it worth their while to sell.

    6. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      I wasn't really trying to debate that part of your post. I don't know what their original agreement was, but if they promised to develop it then they may very well have failed to uphold the agreement.

      I think part of the issue here is that Ebola was a dead-end financially until recently. It is still speculative that anybody will make money off of it. So, companies weren't exactly beating down the door to develop it. Really the solution in these kinds of cases is for the government to just hire a company to do the work on a cost+plus basis or something like that, with the government retaining the patent rights. Of course, that would cost money, which is probably why it wasn't done.

      Heck, I think that the government should be doing this a lot more even for potentially profitable areas. I'd like to see how a cost-plus model works for drug development. The resulting drugs would be cheap, with the taxpayers paying all the bills. This model could compete with the current patent-based model and we could see which was more effective in the long run.

    7. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Only problem is, with the new international trade laws going in that let companies sue governments for "unfair competition", any government that goes cost-plus will get sued to the point where it's not worth pursuing anymore -- because there's no way the patent system can compete with low-cost drugs and open access methods. But I agree: that's what should have been happening for the past decade. It really calls into question why it hasn't, and why governments are instead pushing the current trade laws.

    8. Re:Recognize the crisis in US Big Pharma... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Only problem is, with the new international trade laws going in that let companies sue governments for "unfair competition", any government that goes cost-plus will get sued to the point where it's not worth pursuing anymore -- because there's no way the patent system can compete with low-cost drugs and open access methods. But I agree: that's what should have been happening for the past decade. It really calls into question why it hasn't, and why governments are instead pushing the current trade laws.

      Don't disagree, though really with the low success rate of new drugs these days, you'd think that pharma companies would look at this as an opportunity to diversify. Right now they employ hordes of scientists and since invention is serendipitous they often end up spending money developing less-promising drugs just to keep half of their scientists busy. They can't just fire everybody when they only have one or two candidates and then scale back up when they have more - it is hard to change scale and there are economies of scale from staying big.

      With a model that allows public competition under a cost-plus model a pharma company could still do end-to-end drug development that yields products that are very lucrative, but with a high risk. Then if it has spare capacity it could bid on government cost-plus contracts to develop public candidates. That would allow them to maintain their scale and make a modest profit with very little risk. The situation is really not all that different in terms of what kinds of drugs they target privately - they aim for areas with no competition so that they can make monopoly profits. The public benefits since it gives them more options - the areas the private companies are targeting are areas that the government is missing anyway for whatever reason. Also, some drugs might be needed but be politically undesirable, but private companies will go where the money is so people who suffer from conditions that have some kind of stigma associated will at least get something to help them.

  13. by math I take it you mean by publiclurker · · Score: 2

    all of the money lost by not selling unproven crap to the public for a quick buck. Remember son, you can't just cherry pick a single instance using hindsight to make your case for greed.

    1. Re:by math I take it you mean by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Due to the crap analysis they all use (the NHST hybrid of significance and hypothesis testing invented on accident by EF Lindquist in 1940), the "testing/proving" period is pretty worthless. Not 100% worthless since it does allow us to filter out compounds with unacceptable acute side effects, but pretty much anything can be "proven" to work if all you need is to get p0.05 against the hypothesis that two groups of people are the same.

  14. Authentic? by tomhath · · Score: 1

    (authentic ones, not fake ones, of course)

    Yea, just like all those authentic copies of Windows XP you could buy on street corners. Just because the box looks the same as the one in the US doesn't mean it's the same.

    1. Re:Authentic? by Rick+in+China · · Score: 1

      *sigh* Yes, because that's the same thing.

      It's rather easy to identify fake anything, for the most part, in China.. unless you're some street-dumb newb who just walks off a plane and is SHOCKED that they copy software for sale on street corners.

  15. Not what you think they should apologize for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder if the talking heads and politicians will ever get around to admitting they were wrong, and apologizing.

    Do you seriously think they will ever apologize to the entire United States for letting that Kaci cunt out of quarantine?

    Humans aren't the only species that can transmit the ebola virus. According to Wikipedia, it comes from bats. What if that cunt got bitten by a bat, and that bat infects the entire bat population?

    Christy should have stuck with his guns, punched that bitch in the head and told her to shut the fuck up.

    1. Re:Not what you think they should apologize for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No kidding. She and her boyfriend announced they are leaving the state.. I bet everyone in the whole state hates her for playing games with their family's lives, in a bratty, reckless, and thoroughly selfish way.

  16. Re:Evil Harper Government - really? Wow. by kaladorn · · Score: 1

    What was the logic of that sale?

    Was it simply to raise government revenues by any means they could and someone said 'this vaccine that is unproven and not (at the time in 2010) required or in demand is worth $200K if we sell an exclusive license"? Even that could be defensible as the government has some responsibility to help provide non-taxation revenues where it can.

    Or was the notion to make it available for potential production for a modest fee? That may have factored into the thinking. For this point, an exclusive license may have been a poor choice.

    Every government I have seen behaves in ways I do not approve of. I refuse to call any of them evil as most politicians are morally flexible - it is part of why they can engage in compromise and diplomacy when they choose. This government is not my favourite, but I simply dislike and disagree with their policies. Those I can take clear issue with without needing to step off into abusive ad hominem territory.

    There are many that would blame Mr. Harper's government for heavy snowstorms (global warming), downturns in the global economy (greed and elitism, Bilderbergism, etc), the tensions in Eastern Europe (grandstanding, not cozying up to an ex-Soviet KGB strongman with familiar tendencies, etc), global warming (albeit the majority of that comes to provide energy we all collectively use), and everything else. That is ultimately a bad sort of process because it obscures legitimate critiques of the policies his Government supports and instead focuses on personal attacks.

    Mr. Harper appears to be a power-hungry politician who plays hard ball and prefers adversarial relations with the other parties, rather than a more collegial one. That doesn't make him different than many others past and future and is irrelevant (red herring) where it does not directly relate to any particular policy (as policies should stand or fall on their own merits).

    --
    -- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
  17. Since my tax dollars went to pay for this..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .....I expect a check in the mail, and soon.

    Thank you.

  18. Getting rich... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Over the misery of others... Big Pharma in a nutshell.

    1. Re:Getting rich... by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      Yeah let's shut all of those big evil pharma companies down. That'll show them! Nevermind those few pesky billions of people who will die without them.

  19. Re:Evil Harper Government - really? Wow. by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

    The irony to me is that when you start citing things the Harper government has done in the last ten years, its very hard for detractors to be against them. It seems they're all against theoretical things that could happen or might happen but haven't.

    --
    - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)