Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

GratefulOctopus t1_ixuxtu1 wrote

Can anyone explain why it costs so much? Is it just trying to offset the research investment? Like I have a hard time imagining the actual drug is that expensive to make, maybe how it's administered requires some fancy tech? Looking for sciencey/technical reasons. But can accept that it's just pharmicutical business mark up

37

hobopwnzor t1_ixvkpsv wrote

The new generation of medicines is insanely complex biological medicines. So fancy delivery of very complex difficult to manufacture and test drugs that directly alter your bodies mechanisms. Were kind moving beyond the days when you could just make a chemical and expect it to work better than those already on the market.

54

Sariel007 OP t1_ixuzrk7 wrote

In an analysis of the drug development costs for 98 companies over a decade, the average cost per drug developed and approved by a single-drug company was $350 million.[3] But for companies that approved between eight and 13 drugs over 10 years, the cost per drug went as high as $5.5 billion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_drug_development#:~:text=In%20an%20analysis%20of%20the,as%20high%20as%20%245.5%20billion.

33

GratefulOctopus t1_ixv04rl wrote

Ok so it is mostly just to offset research cost? It's not how much it is to make/administer the drug?

15

TheBearWillBeFine t1_ixw3f6f wrote

I work doing safety testing for drugs just like this. Setting aside all the money it takes to develop one of these viral gene therapy drugs, the cost to manufacture a single dose on a lot of them is somewhere around 50-90,000 dollars. The viruses need to be grown, then emptied of their regular genetic material, have the new, specially designed genetics put in, then replicated up to a level that can be infused into a person. Every single one of those steps requires highly skilled people to ensure it happens correctly. Growth of viruses need to happen in cell tissue culture, which also costs a lot for all the materials to do correctly, then all the supplies needed to purify out the virus from all the other crud in manufacturing. Then, once the product is made, it still has to be quality tested, to ensure things like dosage is correct, and that there isn’t anything left that’s contaminating. And all this doesn’t even count the years and years of research and development that goes into getting a virus with the correct components to be effective at treatment but otherwise non damaging to a patient. Drug product patents have to be filed pretty much as soon as a compound is discovered, so well before clinical trials even begin. They’re often only good for 20-25 years. So, if you figure 7-10 years of base research and development, another 3-5 years of clinical trials, getting FDA approval, etc, on average a company only has 3-5 years to make back ALL the money they put into a new drug, plus some profit to keep the doors open, lights on and investors interested in funding the next project.

18

FUCKYOUINYOURFACE t1_ixv3d53 wrote

It’s also how many can benefit from the treatment. They have to charge more when the prevalence of the disease is lower.

14

cygnoids t1_ixvgx98 wrote

This is the case but it’s also expensive to develop the cells used for AAV based drugs because the cells are killedwhen the virus is made. This, you can’t reuse the same set of cells throughout the process.

8

itwasquiteawhileago t1_ixwemjx wrote

This is where orphan drugs come in. The government (US, anyway, but I'm assuming others have similar programs) can help provide some funding and allowances for private companies to work on drugs for conditions that have a low enough prevalence as to make it economically non-viable. Should someone that has a one in a million disease be left to suffer because Big Pharma can't turn a profit? This is a primary example of why and how governments should function: to ensure people aren't left behind. And, who knows what other things may spawn off such research, so it's not like everyone else might not benefit, too.

3

Plastic-Bluebird-625 t1_ixv1486 wrote

Correct. It's not about the cost of making it. It's the years of research with tons of doctors is what makes the cost.

8

KindlyContribution54 t1_ixvi25z wrote

I saw a bunch of scientists weighing in on this when it was posted elsewhere and it does actually have high ongoing costs custom tailoring it to each patient and expensive materials.

7

picking_a_name_ t1_ixw8odn wrote

It's the cost of the research for this drug, plus paying for the fact that only 1 in a 1,000 drug potentials actually make it to market. So they recoup those costs too. Plus using the costs of other medicines you would have had to buy instead.

1

Colonelfudgenustard t1_ixvgyb3 wrote

They've got to pay back all those volunteers in the studies. Wait a second . . . the volunteers don't get paid!

−8

uski t1_ixwejj9 wrote

I think something is missing here... WHY did it cost so much? I think some people were gouging others and now everyone is like "meh, that's how much it costs"

1

CdnAevyn t1_ixvkamn wrote

It depends on the drug, however while I can’t find the article again with a quick search at work, a few days ago I read this specific drug takes an entire team/lab months to create just around a dozen doses.

Until we’re able to make this more efficient, producing each dose will probably be a large part of the cost when taking into account the salaries/costs of all the staff involved. The fact that hemophilia b is quite rare (I think 1 in 25,000 people) will also often lead to a higher cost.

Regardless, this is an amazing step forward in the fight against a horrible blood disorder.

15

YATr_2003 t1_ixvogvs wrote

There are two reasons the article briefly mentioned, but not other commenters said, so I thought I should highlight them.

The first is that Haemophilia is a rare disease, and as such there are less people to distribute the development cost between, so the cost per patient is high. This is true for any Haemophilia drug, and treatment for some (very) severe cases can be millions of dollars per year. This leads to the second reason, which is that this treatment can be cheaper than the treatment given today. If the government or the insurance companies are willing to pay for it that much money, why not charge them? Yeah, this is immoral and shitty, but since when does that bother pharma companies?

12

ClassyRedandGlassy t1_ixwyuk7 wrote

Like seriously? Uplifting news for who? The wealthy?? Yet again

2

SilverNicktail t1_iy05irm wrote

People who can be cured of a rare genetic disease? "New cutting edge medical technology costs a bloody fortune" is so unsurprising to me as to be completely mundane. The improvement right now is that holy shit, we can cure hemophilia, and the improvement in future will be doing it better, more efficiently, cheaper. Plus, the cost of this treatment compared to all the other care they will require over their lifetimes if not treated - this might well be cheaper.

1

giceman715 t1_ixwevlr wrote

Praying their numbers are off the Venezuelan Bolivar currency

1

ComprehensiveBuyer65 t1_ixwg2pb wrote

It takes bio tech companies years and years to develop treatments and medications. It costs them billions of dollars: they have to pay many types of scientists, the equipment they use is very exacting and expensive. They use enormous amounts and variety’s of PPE. Then after all that they only have a set amount of years to recoup the money they spent making their drug/treatment before other companies can start making generic brands.

1

Astavri t1_ixwrjyp wrote

Besides research or development, there is the manufacturing fixed costs. But research and development has their own fixed costs in process development to get it to the commercial level. Clinical trials are not cheap either.

Basically think of it this way. A machine is going to cost 100 million and it only makes 100 doses per year because that's how many people need it. This is just an abstract number to show the concept.

On the plus side, the alternatives are very expensive as well and you need to take them repeatedly, whereas this is a possibly a cure IIRC.

1

Replicator666 t1_ixxulb8 wrote

Part of it is probably also that it is supposed to be a cure (like permanent after one dose)

There's something called humera (?) to treat hep c. I think one treatment which is a couple doses runs about 0.5 million

1