General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: this is the pill that cures Hepatitis C. This is that pill on big Pharma [View all]metalbot
(1,058 posts)Let's break this down:
1. Hepatitis C will kill you if you have it and something else doesn't kill you first.
2. Average lifetime cost to treat (but not cure) someone with Hepatitis C is between $500k and $1M.
3. This drug CURES (rather than treats) Hepatitis C at 10-20% of the cost of treatment
4. Pharmaceutical company that spent billions developing this drug, much of which would have been wasted had the drug failed in any one of the clinical trials, then allows it to be sold in third world country at near cost so that millions of people won't die.
5. Outrage!
Ironically, if we didn't have a fucked up health care system, they would be able to make less money in the US, and would have to make up the R&D costs by raising prices in the third world, killing lots of people.
The maker of Solvadi is a publicly traded company. Go pull their financials from one of the financial sites, and then come back and complain about the outrage relative to their profit margins.
I've heard people on this site complain that "drug companies don't invest in medicines that cure diseases, because there's only money in treating diseases". Then when they cure one, at a fraction of the cost of treatment, outrage ensues...