[wjnc]

The important question is... why is it ethical for a foundation to deliver a product at $300k/yr where the cost are borne by other people? [1] In my world that price would never be paid, since about €100k/yr would max out the qaly. They would still have their medicine albeit at a perhaps $1 billion profit / return on risk. I'll bet my ethical balls here that none of the small contributors to a CF foundation expect a billion dollar windfall to come out if there contribution, regardless the merits that billion goes to afterwards.

[1] Some economic reductionism here: if you know the cash flow, you can project the value and the other way around. So if someone offers you 3 billion and you know the effect of the medicine and the number of patients, you can infer the price of the medicine. This to establish the (moral) link between the selling of the IP and the price.

[zaroth]

The pharmaceutical company Vertex sells the drug for $300k. Because CF Foundation helped fund the development, they get royalties, just like universities sometimes do when they help develop a drug.

This is great for CF because it’s mostly the insurance companies (and therefore healthy people) who are bearing the costs of the treatment.

So the CF Foundation is “forcing donatations” from the healthy populace through increased insurance premiums to bankroll their continued investments in treatments and such.

I don’t know if that makes it any more or less ethical, but certainly if it were mostly individual CF patients on the hook for the $300k (in aggregate that is — I’m not saying that never happens) then it would make less sense for the CF Foundation as a strategy.

[JKCalhoun]

> This is great for CF because it’s mostly the insurance companies (and therefore healthy people) who are bearing the costs of the treatment.

Don't we all bear the cost of treatment in the form of higher insurance costs because insurance companies are paying exorbitant prices on drugs (among other things)?

[dodobirdlord]

Sure, that's how insurance works. The crux of the issue is whether the prices are actually "exorbitant" or whether that's just political spin. I happen to think it's just political spin.