Re:Mark Cuban is tackling out-of-control drug prices
by conductr on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @02:28PM
(#31658295)
Either approach would be an improvement to current format. My only issue, and I'm rather layman on this, is I don't think academia creates solutions. They generate ideas and the pharma has to figure out all the parts to manufacture/commercialize it. I'd think that process could be more seamless. Right now, I think academia may touch on Z but if there's no $ it just dies in academia and that's a shame.
I also tend to agree that we should be solving problems that affect folks the most and factoring for the magnitude of the issue which is what QALY seems to do to gauge impact, so I like that idea. However, in doing so, I expect you're casting a larger net and bound to stumble on something that serves a smaller market as a byproduct of the R&D. In the current reality, the byproduct would get shelved and never commercialized because it had no ROI, which is also a shame.
I somewhat disagree. I think the best solution is for payers (single or not) to set prices based on quality adjusted life years (QALY). This is done in some single payer markets and makes a lot of sense as it couples incentives with impact.
While cooperate Pharma pays most of R&D costs, Fundamental (extremely early) research is usually still publicly funded through academia. This is where the possible solutions to Z come from.
The "problem" is that R&D spend can have more impact (lives saved) on mainstream diseases than rare diseases. Public-funding/ownership doesn't solve this fundamental issue. You can direct funding to rare diseases by decree, but you are still saving fewer lives than you would otherwise.