[entee]

$70M is a fraction of what it has taken to get Remdesivir to the point where it is today. The argument that government is paying twice for drugs is usually deeply misleading, though in this case it did sponsor some trials. Usually government funds pay for understanding biology and pharma pays for figuring out how to drug those findings. It’s a symbiotic process, and depends on drug discovery being a lucrative business.

All this said, Pharma has abused its position and pricing power. Remdesivir is an ok but not amazing drug, and pricing it this high is bad policy. Part of what they are doing is protecting their flank. Pricing it too low would cause people to say, “see! You CAN price drugs low, let’s make you price other things lower.” This is immoral reasoning but it’s part of the logic.

Drug pricing is super complicated, it’s worth understanding more deeply. Remdesivir is a weird case, and should be viewed in a larger context. See this post as a great place to start with further links within:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/12/11/ar...

(Conflict declaration: I founded a biotech)

[kenhwang]

Thanks for this. I knew at a distance how the pharma industry worked, but this filled in a lot of the gaps.