Comment by sparks1970
5 years ago
I work in this industry and this doesn't ring true.
It would never be the case that a single researcher does some tests and reports them to the boss except in the very earliest stages of drug development. The "boss" in this situation would be another research scientist, far removed from business strategy.
Even then, success in a petri-dish doesn't mean much - it would be years of research with a large team to determine if it was safe and efficacious in human trials.
The idea that the pharma industry suppresses viable medicines because they are "too good" is just conspiracy theory.
I'm not in the industry, but I've read a lot about how drugs get to market and this sounds valid. It takes a LOT of time and money for a drug company to get to the point of knowing how safe and effective a drug is in humans. That's pretty much the last step of drug manufacturing.
By the time a company has spent that amount of research effort and money, there's no way they'd just abandon a drug because it isn't rent seeking enough. Businesses want to recover whatever investment they can.
If a company is aware that a new drug could cure a previously managed disease, it’s pretty obvious that you’d like to be the one pocketing any available profits before a competitor does. The conspiracy only works to the extent that nobody else in the world could create the same drug, and that every person aware of its existence is prepared to keep it secret and lose out on the money to be made selling it.
> that nobody else in the world could create the same drug
Could create it and make a profit selling it.
If the cure generates less profit than current treatment, and if you’re currently selling treatment, then that’s not going to be worth it for you.
If you don’t, well you still need to get it to market, which requires substantial investment.
My point is that the described scenario is not entirely unlikely. For example, type 1 diabetics in the US need something like $600 worth of insulin, every single month for the rest of their lives. Say that’s 60 years, you’re looking at $430k, not even counting needles, sensors, and other stuff they might need (or absolutely need). Average patients won’t be able to cough up nearly as much for a cure.
Pharma has just been way faster than tech in realizing that the subscription model has far better yields.
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That too. The only way to prevent competition would be to patent the drug... and if you did that but didn't release the drug it'd be a REAL bad look.
There's little reason NOT to make money on a developed drug.
Then we have the dental industry. Drill, fill, and bill, without much care for anything else. Not so much active suppression as it is neglecting anything that might disrupt the industry.
not to mention competition for ideas from gung ho biotech startups...