[monero-xmr]

It’s annoying to read “so and so new drug costs too much.”

Creating new drugs is absurdly expensive. Most new drugs target small population groups, which is why treatments do not already exist - the low hanging fruit with large market potential gets targeted first.

Just be happy a flag is planted in the ground. New drugs will be created from this that are different enough to avoid the patent, and new research will enhance it and reduce the side effects. This is just the beginning.

[oaiey]

While true, there is more money going in executive compensation / stock than into research.

So there is plenty of space for lower prices. Plenty.

[jlebar]

Citation needed?

Here's the 2023 report from Roche, which owns Genentech.

https://assets.roche.com/f/176343/x/0ef2047502/ar23-roche-ho...

Page 17 shows that R&D costs for pharma is 10-20x larger than equity-based compensation. That's all stock-based compensation, for execs and regular people. Your claim is that it's the opposite.

[refurb]

That’s absurd and you just made it up. Easily verified through public info.

Take Pfizer, R&D is $11B. You think executive comp is more than $11B?

The CEO total comp is $24M or 2%. The exec team is less than 10 people.

At least try to make believable claims.

[gruez]

He's probably referring to this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39405547 that made the rounds a few weeks ago, and bungled the meaning ("executive compensation / stock" rather than "executives and stockholders than on R&D").

[oaiey]

Correct. I see this from the perspective of the society overall. I do not care whether the money goes to the CEO, a mid-level executive, a sales rep or the stock divident/buyback etc. What matters is how much money from the dollar I spend on a drug goes to research and how much into cost of production. Every other cent is something which has to be under scrutiny like is any tax dollar. Healthcare is like water, food, and shelter an elementary human need. Excessive profiteering or waste on it is just wrong.

[gnicholas]

Don't be annoyed — my comment was not focused just on cost. The point is that it's very expensive and also not that good. I have food allergies in my family and have talked with other families that are ostensibly in the key demographic. We are not impressed. I wouldn't complain about a drug that was a silver bullet, but was quite expensive.

[spondylosaurus]

To be fair, Xolair isn't a new drug at all (it's been around for 20-ish years, I think?), this is just a new thing that it's approved for.

I'm not sure why a generic hasn't hit the market yet, though. Maybe there's not enough demand to make it lucrative enough, unlike the golden child adalimumab...

[kortex]

IIRC, MABs aren't really a thing, because unlike small molecules, part of the approval is for the whole biological pipeline to produce the antibodies, from cell line to chromatography to formulation. When a small molecule goes off patent, you just have to prove to the FDA you can make that molecule to sufficient purity.

That's not to say there are no generic MABs, it's that it is a far costlier process for the generic manufacturers to get up and running.

[spondylosaurus]

I have seen a lot of generics for TNF inhibitors MABs, but that might just be because there's soooo much demand for those drugs. (Humira was one of the most profitable drugs of all time, after all.) Right now I'm on an infliximab biosimilar!

[monero-xmr]

I wasn’t aware of this, thanks for clarification. I will leave my comment as-is because it’s my take on the general “we need to ban price gouging on new drugs!” sentiment.

[spondylosaurus]

Ha, I certainly agree about the price gouging! I've stayed at jobs I hated just to keep my health insurance (and therefore my meds) :P

[a_gnostic]

What's the Mexican name? Asking for a Mexican friend.

[duskwuff]

Generic name for Xolair is omalizumab.