[prog_1]

not "war on cancer" and not "we" winning. It's pharma finding ways how to profit from rare treatment successes of few rare disease types. Majority, and by majority i mean over 80%, of patients and cancer types are still treated with bogstandard chemo+radio+surgery. Individualized treatment plans using checkpoint inhibitor combinations, biotech therapies, etc are for few select individuals with A LOT of money.

how do i know? i work in precision oncology for a decade plus

[leakycap]

I think perspective is important here.

I'm alive because pharma developed an expensive drug that, at the time I got it, was only administered to 42 others before me.

I was a single person working my first job out of college with Blue Cross Blue Shield and got the best I think was available.

You might be jaded after working so long in a difficult industry; the medical research/pharma work done matters to the patients who receive it and get another decade+ of good life.

[prog_1]

im glad for you and every single patient that benefits from something i work on. From the public health angle of most eu countries investment into novel cancer treatments makes a lot less sense that improving prevention.

[rlpb]

> Individualized treatment plans using checkpoint inhibitor combinations, biotech therapies, etc are for few select individuals with A LOT of money.

This is the first step in the commoditization of any new treatment, no? Initially expensive but that creates competition to bring the price down.

[Maybe not in the US though because the customer cannot select their supplier]

[elmolino89]

You may check Europe. I can assure you that patients getting PD-1 inhibitors etc. while if I am not mistaken at least in part recruited for clinical trials pay zilch, nada for the drugs there are taking (in Spain).

[missedthecue]

I don't know... Advancements like Keytruda are huge. And it will be off patent soon. And there are over 1500 active CAR-T clinical trials going on as we speak.

[os2warpman]

Oh don't you worry some pharmabro will change (edit: will pay someone actually smart to change) a single atom within a single molecule of the antibody, or however the fuck they do it, and they'll re-patent all of the derivatives, and nobody will make the off-patent version of pembrolizumab due to drug companies bribing benefit managers to not cover the off-patent versions, the fact that you can't charge $150k/yr for it, and gentlemen's agreements between drug manufacturers to not harsh anyone's vibe.

If we're lucky congress won't be bribed, I mean lobbied for the sake of safety, into criminalizing its importation.