Re:How to Avoid a Post-Antibiotic World
by refurb on Sunday January 22, 2017 @02:01PM
(#13456607)
OK, let me address your points in order.
1. Yes, companies will target certain diseases based on their economic viability. However, the work they do is about 5% of what's required for a fully vetted molecule. Take the number of patients and multiply by some price pulled out of the air and they can slap "a $5B potential market" on their pitch slides. Until they actually have some clinical data and start to dig into the pricing/reimbursement environment, those numbers are just wild-ass guesses. How do I know? My old job was doing commercial assessment for in-licensing and phase 2 molecules. Even the big companies had to shut down programs post-phase 1 because their initial commercial assessment was way off the mark. To say that hundreds of clinical programs never make it past screening because their don't have a good ROI isn't true. Companies just don't have enough data that early to make those kind of calls.
2. Sure Gilead lost almost half their market cap in 2015 since they were missing estimates. But that was simply because they missed some pretty ridiculous earnings goals. The fact remains the company made tens of billions of dollars over a couple years based on selling a cure. Both of their HCV drugs sold more in two years than most drugs sell over their entire lifecycle. They were simply a cash cow.
1. Yes, companies will target certain diseases based on their economic viability. However, the work they do is about 5% of what's required for a fully vetted molecule. Take the number of patients and multiply by some price pulled out of the air and they can slap "a $5B potential market" on their pitch slides. Until they actually have some clinical data and start to dig into the pricing/reimbursement environment, those numbers are just wild-ass guesses. How do I know? My old job was doing commercial assessment for in-licensing and phase 2 molecules. Even the big companies had to shut down programs post-phase 1 because their initial commercial assessment was way off the mark. To say that hundreds of clinical programs never make it past screening because their don't have a good ROI isn't true. Companies just don't have enough data that early to make those kind of calls.
2. Sure Gilead lost almost half their market cap in 2015 since they were missing estimates. But that was simply because they missed some pretty ridiculous earnings goals. The fact remains the company made tens of billions of dollars over a couple years based on selling a cure. Both of their HCV drugs sold more in two years than most drugs sell over their entire lifecycle. They were simply a cash cow.