Slashdot Mirror
FDA Approves First-Ever Gene Therapy For Inherited Form of Blindness (sciencealert.com)
schwit1 shares a report from ScienceAlert: In a historic move, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a pioneering gene therapy for a rare form of childhood blindness, the first such treatment cleared in the United States for an inherited disease. The approval signals a new era for gene therapy, a field that struggled for decades to overcome devastating setbacks but now is pushing forward in an effort to develop treatments for haemophilia, sickle-cell anaemia, and an array of other genetic diseases. Yet the products, should they reach patients, are likely to cost as much as $1 million for both eyes.
Why do you hate freedom of choice? Instead of being condemned to have health care, you can freely choose between having health insurance and eating.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Currently stats say that only less than 10 percent of people in the USA have diabetes, if that number was closer to 50% then hell yes you would be able to get all your supplies at the dollar store.
"Only 10%"? That's over 30 million people. WELL past minimum efficient scale for production and distribution. Anything that affects double digit percentages of the US population is a gigantic market for a single drug.
The reasons medications are expensive is because in the US we have a completely retarded system for buying them that gives all the power in the relationship to the drug company. They charge a lot because they can. Most countries solve this by having a single payer system so drug prices get regulated to reasonable prices. Evidently we aren't so smart in the US so we pay far more than almost anywhere else.