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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.
(Score: 2) by VanessaE on Monday April 16 2018, @03:21AM (1 child)
Simplistic or not, the math doesn't lie. X dollars times Y recipients is still X times Y, no matter how much estimation, forecasting, etc. you do to figure out what values to plug in for each variable.
Twist it any way you want, it's greed.
(Score: 2) by Alphatool on Monday April 16 2018, @12:47PM
Hate to have to say it, but your maths is way off. First you have to allow for the time value of money, then for the fact that all of the people who can afford it will get treated at the start, so the price has to keep dropping to keep demand up. Additionally, as a cure it will reduce the transmission of the disease on a population basis. This means the demand will taper off, even with price reductions (unless something else causes the transmission to increase... it can be hard to predict). Then you have to take physical realities into account. It's not possible to instantly get a complex medicine out to tens of millions of people per year. Even if it was possible to ramp up production quickly enough, the supply chains and clinical infrastructure just won't get to that many people in a year or two - it takes time. You may doubt this, but there is enough money in it a company would do almost anything to make it happen if they could. Each country also has its own regulatory and cost structures, so each country needs its own detailed analysis. Once you get passed these issues in developed countries you need to start looking at pushing into the developing and less developed world, and that's a whole new ball game.
All of this combines so that a simple X times Y is just wrong, to the point of being a lie.