On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 23:23:11 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:37:38 -0800, wrote:

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:44:25 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:51:58 -0800, wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:09:26 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:44:39 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

Maybe it cost that much to produce. R&D aint cheap

That is the problem with all of the "orphan" diseases. If you spend
$50 million developing a drug that only goes to 10 thousand paying
patients, it is going to be expensive.

So, therefore, it should not be up to for-profit companies. It should
be the responsibility of the state to "promote the general welfare" of
its citizens.

The reality is the same, whether it is the taxpayer or the people who
buy drug insurance or just the patient himself. It will still be
expensive per patient and there is always a cost benefit analysis.

If you are honestly suggesting the government should be developing
these drugs, I would ask, which breakthrough drug has the government
ever developed?
Just look at the human genome project. The government spent a lot of
money and got nowhere for over a decade. A private company tackled the
project and broke the code in months.

The cost will not be the same, since the gov't wouldn't be spending a
large percentage of money on adverts to "promote" the drug. In
addition, the overhead would be lower, and most importantly, most of
the orphan disease drugs would not be even developed by the for-profit
drug companies.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0105140107.htm


You are not going to see me defend the way big pharma markets drugs
but they are the only ones with the capability to develop new drugs.
Personally I think we are over drugged. The doctors and the drug
companies have convinced us we haven't been to the doctor unless we
come home with a couple prescriptions.
Unfortunately they will usually be the ones the drug salesman is
pumping, whether it really helps you or not. A hint is what you see on
all the pens and note pads at the doctor's office.

I am the only person I know my age who is not taking 3 or 4 pills a
day. I take 2 fish oil capsules and that is it.

I'm glad you're not going to defend them. They're indefensible on so
many levels. Yes, they're the only ones capable, but they don't have
to do the orphan disease drugs for a profit. They could do them as
part of a regulatory requirement... funded, but no profit.


I'm not suggesting the gov't do the R&D. Rather the development should
be done in a similar way flu vaccines are created.

Somewhat dated, but here's a timeline...

http://www.influenza.com/images/timeline.gif

Flu vaccine that will be taken by tens of millions of people has
little to do with a drug made for a few thousand. You also grow a
vaccine from the cells of the virus you want to kill. It is not like a
chemical you have to make from scratch without really knowing what to
even start with.

Actually, it's quite similar, since the companies that make it don't
make much money at it. It's also similar in some respects to other
drugs. Many drugs are not "chemical" based alone. Do you think that
vaccines are pure bio agent?

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 22:07:23 -0800, "Califbill"
wrote:

wrote in message ...

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:37:38 -0800, wrote:

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:44:25 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:51:58 -0800, wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:09:26 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:44:39 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

Maybe it cost that much to produce. R&D aint cheap

That is the problem with all of the "orphan" diseases. If you spend
$50 million developing a drug that only goes to 10 thousand paying
patients, it is going to be expensive.

So, therefore, it should not be up to for-profit companies. It should
be the responsibility of the state to "promote the general welfare" of
its citizens.

The reality is the same, whether it is the taxpayer or the people who
buy drug insurance or just the patient himself. It will still be
expensive per patient and there is always a cost benefit analysis.

If you are honestly suggesting the government should be developing
these drugs, I would ask, which breakthrough drug has the government
ever developed?
Just look at the human genome project. The government spent a lot of
money and got nowhere for over a decade. A private company tackled the
project and broke the code in months.

The cost will not be the same, since the gov't wouldn't be spending a
large percentage of money on adverts to "promote" the drug. In
addition, the overhead would be lower, and most importantly, most of
the orphan disease drugs would not be even developed by the for-profit
drug companies.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0105140107.htm


You are not going to see me defend the way big pharma markets drugs
but they are the only ones with the capability to develop new drugs.
Personally I think we are over drugged. The doctors and the drug
companies have convinced us we haven't been to the doctor unless we
come home with a couple prescriptions.
Unfortunately they will usually be the ones the drug salesman is
pumping, whether it really helps you or not. A hint is what you see on
all the pens and note pads at the doctor's office.

I am the only person I know my age who is not taking 3 or 4 pills a
day. I take 2 fish oil capsules and that is it.


I'm not suggesting the gov't do the R&D. Rather the development should
be done in a similar way flu vaccines are created.

Somewhat dated, but here's a timeline...

http://www.influenza.com/images/timeline.gif

Flu vaccine that will be taken by tens of millions of people has
little to do with a drug made for a few thousand. You also grow a
vaccine from the cells of the virus you want to kill. It is not like a
chemical you have to make from scratch without really knowing what to
even start with.


Reply:
The cost to develop is large. Last Bioengineering company I worked for
spent $45 million on a women's incontinence procedure. Due to a design
consideration, mechanical, not on the electrical side I worked on we hurt a
couple women in the clinical trials. Training of the doctors was also a
problem and that probably caused 5 of the 9 problems during clinical trials
of 150 women. Company went out of business. Someone will have to cover
that $45 million in the next startups the VC's fund.

Yes, the development cost is large, but so is the marketing budget.
That's a very, very big number.

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 09:22:44 -0800 (PST), "Katie O'Hara"
wrote:

On Nov 27, 1:07*am, "Califbill" wrote:
wrote in messagenews:fd11f65pjsnt9to8d0h8v9s1soa7tidolc@4ax .com...



On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:37:38 -0800, wrote:
On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:44:25 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:51:58 -0800, wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:09:26 -0500, wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:44:39 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

Maybe it cost that much to produce. *R&D aint cheap

That is the problem with all of the "orphan" diseases. If you spend
$50 million developing a drug that only goes to 10 thousand paying
patients, it is going to be expensive.

So, therefore, it should not be up to for-profit companies. It should
be the responsibility of the state to "promote the general welfare" of
its citizens.

The reality is the same, whether it is the taxpayer or the people who
buy drug insurance or just the patient himself. It will still be
expensive per patient and there is always a cost benefit analysis.

If you are honestly suggesting the government should be developing
these drugs, I would ask, which breakthrough drug has the government
ever developed?
Just look at the human genome project. The government spent a lot of
money and got nowhere for over a decade. A private company tackled the
project and broke the code in months.

The cost will not be the same, since the gov't wouldn't be spending a
large percentage of money on adverts to "promote" the drug. In
addition, the overhead would be lower, and most importantly, most of
the orphan disease drugs would not be even developed by the for-profit
drug companies.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0105140107.htm

You are not going to see me defend the way big pharma markets drugs
but they are the only ones with the capability to develop new drugs.
Personally I think we are over drugged. The doctors and the drug
companies have convinced us we haven't been to the doctor unless we
come home with a couple prescriptions.
Unfortunately they will usually be the ones the drug salesman is
pumping, whether it really helps you or not. A hint is what you see on
all the pens and note pads at the doctor's office.

I am the only person I know my age who is not taking 3 or 4 pills a
day. I take 2 fish oil capsules and that is it.

I'm not suggesting the gov't do the R&D. Rather the development should
be done in a similar way flu vaccines are created.

Somewhat dated, but here's a timeline...

http://www.influenza.com/images/timeline.gif

Flu vaccine that will be taken by tens of millions of people has
little to do with a drug made for a few thousand. You also grow a
vaccine from the cells of the virus you want to kill. It is not like a
chemical you have to make from scratch without really knowing what to
even start with.

Reply:
The cost to develop is large. *Last Bioengineering company I worked for
spent $45 million on a women's incontinence procedure. *Due to a design
consideration, mechanical, not on the electrical side I worked on we hurt a
couple women in the clinical trials. * Training of the doctors was also a
problem and that probably caused 5 of the 9 problems during clinical trials
of 150 women. *Company went out of business. *Someone will have to cover
that $45 million in the next startups the VC's fund.

If left up the the govt, few new drugs would ever be developed,
especially for diseases with few sufferers. The model to look at is
the old Soviet Union, they developed nothing of value to people except
by copying the west.tathupe

Please show me where anyone is seriously suggesting that the
development of new drugs should be "left up to the gov't."

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:23:03 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:32:39 -0800, wrote:

If left up the the govt, few new drugs would ever be developed,
especially for diseases with few sufferers. The model to look at is
the old Soviet Union, they developed nothing of value to people except
by copying the west.tathupe

Please show me where anyone is seriously suggesting that the
development of new drugs should be "left up to the gov't."

What does "So, therefore, it should not be up to for-profit companies.
It should be the responsibility of the state to "promote the general
welfare" of its citizens." mean?

Not sure what point you're trying to make. Nobody is suggesting the
gov't produce the special-needs drugs. What I'm proposing is that the
gov't mandate that those diseases have R&D research done and that
certain drug companies be required to produce them with reasonable
compensation made to them by us.

Why is the profit motive so all important when it involves someone's
health or life?

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:20:20 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:30:27 -0800, wrote:

You are not going to see me defend the way big pharma markets drugs
but they are the only ones with the capability to develop new drugs.
Personally I think we are over drugged. The doctors and the drug
companies have convinced us we haven't been to the doctor unless we
come home with a couple prescriptions.
Unfortunately they will usually be the ones the drug salesman is
pumping, whether it really helps you or not. A hint is what you see on
all the pens and note pads at the doctor's office.

I am the only person I know my age who is not taking 3 or 4 pills a
day. I take 2 fish oil capsules and that is it.

I'm glad you're not going to defend them. They're indefensible on so
many levels. Yes, they're the only ones capable, but they don't have
to do the orphan disease drugs for a profit. They could do them as
part of a regulatory requirement... funded, but no profit.

There is no way to force a drug company to develop a drug that doesn't
exist yet. You can't even prove it is possible until they actually
make it, test it and get FDA approval (a huge part of the cost).
Of course there is also the lawyer tax. They spent 20 tiles the amount
defending cases against Vioxx than it cost to develop the drug.
Fen Phen was even worse than that. It doesn't help that there are
ambulance chasers on TV telling people that they have money coming,
even if they never had any bad reactions to a drug.

I guess you never heard of NIH funded research? Happens all the time.

Not sure what dangerous drugs on the market without proper
testing/verification has to do with funding research for specialty
drugs, but feel free to attack lawyers if you think that'll solve the
problem of people who have rare diseases not getting the drugs they
need.

So, if marketing the drugs are 50% of the price after they get them to
market, and we reduce that percent to zero, don't you think that'll
lower the cost to the end user? Even if we gave Pharma 10% profit
guaranteed, it would still cost people less.

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 14:31:26 -0800, wrote:

Why is the profit motive so all important when it involves someone's
health or life?

Corporations have a fiduciary responsiblity to their stock holders to
try and achieve profits. That is why they are in business. To
suggest that government should force corporations to develop and
produce a product without a profit motive is totally unrealistic.

PS, this discussion should be taken offline before it turns political.

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:49:23 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 14:31:26 -0800, wrote:

Why is the profit motive so all important when it involves someone's
health or life?

Corporations have a fiduciary responsiblity to their stock holders to
try and achieve profits. That is why they are in business. To
suggest that government should force corporations to develop and
produce a product without a profit motive is totally unrealistic.

PS, this discussion should be taken offline before it turns political.

Huh? You never heard of the gov't requiring car manufacturers to
produce things like tanks, bombers, etc?

Again, why should a profit motive drive what's needed for people's
health and welfare? You don't need to explain basic business concepts
to me, as I probably have a better education on the subject than most
here.

PS, stop being the newsgroup policeman. Greg and I are having a
pleasant conversation that will only get mishandled by those who have
that motivation.

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:54:34 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 14:42:44 -0800, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:20:20 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:30:27 -0800, wrote:

You are not going to see me defend the way big pharma markets drugs
but they are the only ones with the capability to develop new drugs.
Personally I think we are over drugged. The doctors and the drug
companies have convinced us we haven't been to the doctor unless we
come home with a couple prescriptions.
Unfortunately they will usually be the ones the drug salesman is
pumping, whether it really helps you or not. A hint is what you see on
all the pens and note pads at the doctor's office.

I am the only person I know my age who is not taking 3 or 4 pills a
day. I take 2 fish oil capsules and that is it.

I'm glad you're not going to defend them. They're indefensible on so
many levels. Yes, they're the only ones capable, but they don't have
to do the orphan disease drugs for a profit. They could do them as
part of a regulatory requirement... funded, but no profit.

There is no way to force a drug company to develop a drug that doesn't
exist yet. You can't even prove it is possible until they actually
make it, test it and get FDA approval (a huge part of the cost).
Of course there is also the lawyer tax. They spent 20 tiles the amount
defending cases against Vioxx than it cost to develop the drug.
Fen Phen was even worse than that. It doesn't help that there are
ambulance chasers on TV telling people that they have money coming,
even if they never had any bad reactions to a drug.

I guess you never heard of NIH funded research? Happens all the time.


I know quite a bit about NIH funded research, I worked there for 5
years. It is largely an earmark type operation with universities
getting federal grants, based on the power of their congressmen.

The example I gave about the human genome project is typical.
NIH screwed around with this for years, with mediocre results.

That's one example of how many examples of NIH funding... I take it
you saw the 60 Minutes show and that's where you're getting that? The
NIH funds all sorts of programs, as do other gov't agencies, including
DARPA.

FYI, what's wrong with earmarks for worthy things? We're not talking
about a bridge to nowhere.

Not sure what dangerous drugs on the market without proper
testing/verification has to do with funding research for specialty
drugs, but feel free to attack lawyers if you think that'll solve the
problem of people who have rare diseases not getting the drugs they
need.


Lawyers tend to attack anything where there is a buck to be made, real
danger or not. All drugs have side effects, some worse than others.
The only real question is whether it is worse than the disease.

?? People with orphan diseases aren't going to be suing. That's just
ranting against lawyers on your part.

A great example is methotrexate. One of the quacks I went to
prescribed it to me for my arthritis. I read the 4 page warning sheet
and threw it in the trash. I suppose if I had incurable cancer I might
have been tempted to take it tho. I ended up with some physical
therapy and I live with some pain. I can deal with that.

Again, this has nothing to do with orphan diseases.

As I said, if you had some horrible/deadly disease, you'd take the
drug and not sue.

So, if marketing the drugs are 50% of the price after they get them to
market, and we reduce that percent to zero, don't you think that'll
lower the cost to the end user? Even if we gave Pharma 10% profit
guaranteed, it would still cost people less.

I rate advertising drugs right up there with lawyer advertising and
political advertising. They should all be banned.

No disagreement with either of those statements! (except patent
attorneys of course!)

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 16:10:26 -0800, wrote:

Corporations have a fiduciary responsiblity to their stock holders to
try and achieve profits. That is why they are in business. To
suggest that government should force corporations to develop and
produce a product without a profit motive is totally unrealistic.

PS, this discussion should be taken offline before it turns political.

Huh? You never heard of the gov't requiring car manufacturers to
produce things like tanks, bombers, etc?


No.

Again, why should a profit motive drive what's needed for people's
health and welfare? You don't need to explain basic business concepts
to me, as I probably have a better education on the subject than most
here.


If you want a corporation involved, there has to be a profit motive.

PS, stop being the newsgroup policeman. Greg and I are having a
pleasant conversation that will only get mishandled by those who have
that motivation.

I don't view myself in that role at all but I do have a long history
here, and have a very good idea how these discussions get out of
control and attract a lot of overheated emotional content. Out of
consideration for others, please find another venue where this
discussion would be more appropriate.

"Wayne.B" wrote in message ...
On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 16:10:26 -0800, wrote:

Corporations have a fiduciary responsiblity to their stock holders to
try and achieve profits. That is why they are in business. To
suggest that government should force corporations to develop and
produce a product without a profit motive is totally unrealistic.

PS, this discussion should be taken offline before it turns political.

Huh? You never heard of the gov't requiring car manufacturers to
produce things like tanks, bombers, etc?


No.

Again, why should a profit motive drive what's needed for people's
health and welfare? You don't need to explain basic business concepts
to me, as I probably have a better education on the subject than most
here.


If you want a corporation involved, there has to be a profit motive.

PS, stop being the newsgroup policeman. Greg and I are having a
pleasant conversation that will only get mishandled by those who have
that motivation.

I don't view myself in that role at all but I do have a long history
here, and have a very good idea how these discussions get out of
control and attract a lot of overheated emotional content. Out of
consideration for others, please find another venue where this
discussion would be more appropriate.


That little lady has been out of control since the day she got here.

--
Ziggy®