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posted by janrinok on Sunday April 15 2018, @06:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the enough-to-make-you-sick dept.

One-shot cures for diseases are not great for business—more specifically, they’re bad for longterm profits—Goldman Sachs analysts noted in an April 10 report for biotech clients, first reported by CNBC.

The investment banks’ report, titled “The Genome Revolution,” asks clients the touchy question: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” The answer may be “no,” according to follow-up information provided.

[...] 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.

[...] Ars reached out to Goldman Sachs, which confirmed the content of the report but declined to comment.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @12:19PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @12:19PM (#667243)

    Here's what we need:

    1. Researchers find underlying gene changes that can cure disorders.
    2. Patient with genetic disorder interacts with one doctor maximum. Computer analysis/AI tailors a gene sequence(s) to the patient, since many different mutations can cause the same or very similar disorder.
    3. Digital sequence assembled by the computer is turned into a personalized biological. Hopefully, one gene editing.system will fit all gene therapies.
    4. Slight adjustments to treatment regimen based on the disorder (eg. Is your bone marrow the source of the problem, eyeballs, brain, etc.?). Minimize this step as much as possible and aim to make the treatment self-administered with no needle.

    If the process is streamlined and the R&D is paid by goverment and universities instead of big pharma, this could end up being cheap. If pharma doesn't want it to exist, a silicon valley company like Google Calico will go for it. Health and life insurance companies would also love to have preventative + curative care available for cheap. Both would also love anti-aging (which necessarily includes curing cancer and other expensive diseases).

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 15 2018, @08:54PM

    by frojack (1554) on Sunday April 15 2018, @08:54PM (#667386) Journal

    1. Researchers find underlying gene changes that can cure disorders.
    2. Patient with genetic disorder interacts with one doctor maximum. Computer analysis/AI tailors a gene sequence(s) to the patient, since many different mutations can cause the same or very similar disorder.
    3. Digital sequence assembled by the computer is turned into a personalized biological. Hopefully, one gene editing.system will fit all gene therapies.
    4. Slight adjustments to treatment regimen based on the disorder (eg. Is your bone marrow the source of the problem, eyeballs, brain, etc.?). Minimize this step as much as possible and aim to make the treatment self-administered with no needle.

    Exactly.

    You need to invent an entirely new business model and research/development ecosystem for this kind of medicine to be cost effective.
    That will happen, over time.

    In the meantime, people are dying from very common diseases because our current models and ecosystems can't cure Alzheimer's and heart disease. We can barely treat these, let along cure them, and they are very common. There is simply no hope for the vast majority of those with extremely rare genetic diseases that require one-off medicines and treatments, until your entirely new environment evolves.

    Custom medicine requires a totally new infrastructure.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.