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'Is Curing Patients a Sustainable Business Model?' Goldman Sachs Analysts Ask (arstechnica.com)
In an April 10 report for biotech clients, Goldman Sachs analysts noted that one-shot cures for diseases are not great for business as they're bad for longterm profits. The investment banks' report, titled "The Genome Revolution," asks clients: "Is curing patients a sustainable business model?" The answer may be "no," according to follow-up information provided. Slashdot reader tomhath shares the report from Ars Technica: Analyst Salveen Richter and colleagues laid it out: "The potential to deliver 'one shot cures' is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically engineered cell therapy, and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies... While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow."
For a real-world example, they pointed to Gilead Sciences, which markets treatments for hepatitis C that have cure rates exceeding 90 percent. In 2015, the company's hepatitis C treatment sales peaked at $12.5 billion. But as more people were cured and there were fewer infected individuals to spread the disease, sales began to languish. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the treatments will bring in less than $4 billion this year. [Gilead]'s rapid rise and fall of its hepatitis C franchise highlights one of the dynamics of an effective drug that permanently cures a disease, resulting in a gradual exhaustion of the prevalent pool of patients," the analysts wrote. The report noted that diseases such as common cancers -- where the "incident pool remains stable" -- are less risky for business.
For a real-world example, they pointed to Gilead Sciences, which markets treatments for hepatitis C that have cure rates exceeding 90 percent. In 2015, the company's hepatitis C treatment sales peaked at $12.5 billion. But as more people were cured and there were fewer infected individuals to spread the disease, sales began to languish. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the treatments will bring in less than $4 billion this year. [Gilead]'s rapid rise and fall of its hepatitis C franchise highlights one of the dynamics of an effective drug that permanently cures a disease, resulting in a gradual exhaustion of the prevalent pool of patients," the analysts wrote. The report noted that diseases such as common cancers -- where the "incident pool remains stable" -- are less risky for business.
This is the basic reason that a private healthcare system can never be an ethical or ideal system. Making a profit can only come at the expense of someone's health, life, or livelihood. It ultimately places the burden of providing that profit on society as a whole.
I've never heard of a pharma company that says it needs more sick people. The reality of that industry is that the big players in the US are by far and away at the forefront of finding new cures and new therapies. After their market exclusivity and/or patents expire, they move on. Do you know who takes over from there? Companies with much smaller margins that make generic medications that are the same from one manufacturer to the next, effectively making them commodities. TFS mentions Gilead Sciences cure for Hep C, so let's drive this point further home using them as an example:
Contrary to popular conspiracy theories, they had the opportunity to create a permanent cure for the disease, and they made no attempt at all to prevent it from being fully effective. The prior-existing pharmaceutical treatments for Hep-C (i.e. anti-viral drugs, treatments for cirrhosis) were already profitable, and they could have simply spent their resources coming up with drugs to treat those symptoms that apply to all people with liver disease, or even in the case of anti-viral drugs, they could have worked for more than just this. But no, they went after the cure, and it cost them a lot of money. Meanwhile, guess what? Other companies are already jumping into this market without waiting for any patents to expire by developing new formulas:
https://www.npr.org/sections/h...
If a cure doesn't pay off, or if Big Pharma doesn't want it to happen, then why the fuck would they bother? Call it unethical all you want, but if any more ethical approaches work, they damn sure aren't delivering anywhere close to the results than the existing "unethical" system does.
So which do you prefer?
1. You pay money to motivate somebody to be interested in creating a cure, and you don't die
2. You say "paying money for a cure is unethical!", nothing ever gets done, and you die
Besides that, the rest of the world should be grateful that the US works the way that it does. The democrats and the rest of the world love to bash our health care and bash the "megacorps" that operate here, but the US private sector has been providing ALL of them the cures, treatments, and therapies to more diseases than anybody else for the past few decades. Cures like this come here for a reason: The political situation here allows cures that work to receive great returns. Meanwhile, the rest of the world (typically) only pays a fraction for these treatments compared to what US citizens do, which effectively means that the US private sector is subsidizing the "free" health care that other countries provide.
So please, try not to take it for granted. And no, this is not to say that our health care system is perfect (believe me, there are plenty of legitimate complaints against it.)