Wonder drugs

[catgate]

The latest move in the wonder drug world has raised a very disturbing point, in my view.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jht...2/hcancer22.xml

The conclusions arrived at by NICE seem to indicate that the drug companies are playing a very despicable game. It is normal to do an assessment of the market, prior to launching/developing a product, and only if the commodity looks to be a financially viable is the product developed/produced.

Here we have a situation where a drug, which seems to have a very short term therapeutic effect has been launched at an astronomical cost. This has a very strong smell of blackmail to me.

Additionally I can not come to terms with the cost of many of todays therapeutic drugs. Granted the costs of development are often high, but the costs of production are generally quite small.

[Thos]

Yes. It is disturbing and if these drugs can be bought cheaply on the internet, it would seem that someone is making a lot of money out of the sick. It seems also that this new generation of anti-cancer drugs will exacerbate the problem of paying for life-prolonging treatment. Even if the suggestion by the professor in the Telegraph article of contributory patient payment is taken up, it would debar many people from treatment which the wealthy could have. A recipe for chaos.

Thos.

[catgate]

A further thought along these lines.

"Pledge just £xx per week and together we WILL beat cancer."

My wife's mother died from bowel cancer about 30 years ago. My father was luckier. His was found in time, but he had several years of very second rate existence after the operation. Since then little seems to have changed, other than the increased frequency and insistance of the "demands" for charitable donations to scores of cancer research organizations.

Recently two friends both died of brain cancer and another with throat cancer.

Considering all the millions of pounds thrown at this problem one would have thought that by now treatments and cures should be cheaper and more certain. Or am I chasing another moonbeam? Or is pseudo science?

[deuces wild]

The latest move in the wonder drug world has raised a very disturbing point, in my view.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jht...2/hcancer22.xml

The conclusions arrived at by NICE seem to indicate that the drug companies are playing a very despicable game. It is normal to do an assessment of the market, prior to launching/developing a product, and only if the commodity looks to be a financially viable is the product developed/produced.

Here we have a situation where a drug, which seems to have a very short term therapeutic effect has been launched at an astronomical cost. This has a very strong smell of blackmail to me.

Additionally I can not come to terms with the cost of many of todays therapeutic drugs. Granted the costs of development are often high, but the costs of production are generally quite small.

How many pharmaceutical companies will invest in years of research and testing, take all the steps to get government approval, including compiling mounds of paperwork, then sell the drugs initially for 25 cents each (their actual cost at the point of production to produce the pill)?

I am not justifying the costs of the medicines but the companies are, after all, doing this to make a profit and are entitled to that profit.

Perhaps high initial costs of the drug should be limited to "x" number of years, enough for the company to break even and recoup all past expenses. After that the pills can then be regulated for cost control at a reasonable amount.

I am not in favor of the government setting price controls on private companies. There has to be a solution to the problem though, especially since competition is rare in the pharmaceutical world.

[catgate]

I am not justifying the costs of the medicines but the companies are, after all, doing this to make a profit and are entitled to that profit.

Do you know the size of these profits?

I was with one of the worlds large pharmaceutical companies for thirty years.

[-pops-]

Perhaps high initial costs of the drug should be limited to "x" number of years, enough for the company to break even and recoup all past expenses. After that the pills can then be regulated for cost control at a reasonable amount.

I am not in favor of the government setting price controls on private companies. There has to be a solution to the problem though, especially since competition is rare in the pharmaceutical world.

The high initial costs of a drug are limited to 20 years - the lifetime of the patent that is taken out on them. After that, it's a free for all and prices plummet as anyone and everyone has the opportunity to make and sell the drug. That 20 years, though, includes a lot of premarket research and development such that the actual time the preparation is available for patient use may be ten years or less. A huge number of drugs get patented but few ever come to market because of adverse things that come to light during testing - most not as spectacular as the horror film-like fiasco earlier this year but adverse reactions nevertheless. Even that is not foolproof and still various drugs get taken off the market.

Even so, I feel that there is something very dubious about marketing a drug at a vast, continuing cost per patient which will only prolong life expectancy by a few months and, as I understand it, offer only a poor quality life.

I am someone who relies on medication to stay alive and who did rely on some fairly expensive (I thought) drugs to effectively bring me back to life after myocardial infarctions. The first expensive drug was a single dose of streptokinase (£80). A few days later another attack required me to have another "clot buster" drug but, as I had now been hypersensitised to streptokinase, I had to be given another similar drug, ateplase (£800). I then had surgery to fix things properly and this cost about £4,000. This all happened in 1999. Since then, although I take a lot of medicaments, the cost is very low - amounting to a few pence a day.

Compared with the prices bandied about for these new treatments, my costs were negligible but they have given me an extra six years of reasonable existence which is a lot more than can be said for a few months of a not very satisfactory existence at many, many thousands of pounds.

[deuces wild]

Heck, I take 4 prescription medicines/day.......my wife takes 3.....my son and daughter (allergies and acne) each take 2. My wife and I see our doctors 2/year, including a full physical and blood work. My son sees an allergist 1/month.

For this we now pay $6,000 in medical insurance costs, including a $3,000 health fund (once the fund is exhausted 100% of our expenses are paid).

Needless and frivolous malpractice and other lawsuits and extraordinary awards from juries are mainly to blame for the rising medical costs. Perhaps we need to get a better handle on that.

[andsome]

I just hope and pray that I will never need very expensive treatment. I would hate to be in the position of some people who have had to take local health authorities to court in order to get treatment.