Re:Eating Too Much Rice Almost Doomed Japan's Imperial Navy
by refurb on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @09:08AM
(#20029594)
Yet one of the most profitable drug launches ever was a cure for hepatitis C.
Re:Eating Too Much Rice Almost Doomed Japan's Imperial Navy
by PhantomGremlin on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @09:13PM
(#20036008)
Flash in the pan revenues. No company wants to have this press:
Gilead Sciences Inc. will continue to feel the financial sting this year of declining revenues from its hepatitis C business, forecasting combined 2018 sales of the drugs reaching only a fifth of what the biotech recorded at the height of its commercial success three years ago.
https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/gilead-hepatitis-c-revenu...
Contrast a statin for Pfizer: $125 billion in sales over 14 years. Lipitor alone "provided up to a quarter of Pfizer Inc.'s annual revenue for years."
Re:Eating Too Much Rice Almost Doomed Japan's Imperial Navy
by refurb on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @12:18AM
(#20036824)
Yeah, a company would certainly turn down a $10B a year drug because revenues declined after a few years!
Sure it’s not as successful as Lipitor (pretty much the most successful drug ever), but it’s total sales DWARF 95% of the drugs out there.
Re:Eating Too Much Rice Almost Doomed Japan's Imperial Navy
by verucanacl on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @10:17PM
(#20036337)
For good reason. Curing Hep C was a breakthrough medical innovation, which ultimately will save the healthcare system tens of billions of dollars (preventing end stage liver disease, liver transplants, etc)
I'm not sure if "fails miserably" is the proper characterization. It's just simple capitalism.
Just look at statins. They're something that they want to sell you for the rest of your life. Because statins treat symptoms, they're not a cure. But antibiotics? Just 10 days and you're done.
Hmmm. Which is more profitable? It it any wonder that the US government is looking into how to fund development of new antibiotics? Same with vaccines. The government has had to step in to fund them.