Democratic Underground posters get angry at new Hepatitis C drug that costs less than 1/6 as much as a liver transplant
Hepatitis C is a an infectious disease that, in the U.S., kills more people than AIDS.
Some patients require a liver transplant which costs an average of $577,000.
However, a new drug for the disease just came on the market. It’s called Sovaldi, and it costs $84,000 for a 12 week course of treatment.
Taking this drug lets patients avoid getting a liver transplant.
Those of us who understand math think that this is a wonderful thing. Spending $84,000 instead of $577,000 is a huge savings.
I think it’s great that this new drug has been invented.
However, for some weird reason which I do not understand, many of the people at Democratic Underground have nothing but hatred and contempt for Gilead Sciences, the company that invented this drug. In this thread, someone says:
“that’s just despicable… Big Pharma should be ashamed of itself.”
In this other thread, the following comments were made:
“That is utterly obscene…. Remarkable greed.”
“Disgusting and obscene!”
“holding the ill hostage….criminal”
“Bloodsuckers. Put them in the stockades and offer them Freedom for a price.”
“‘Get a rope!’ I mean seriously, what do these monsters have to do?”
“Those behind this sort of maneuver are mass murderers. Using price to deny life saving drugs is no different that standing people against a wall and shooting them, except that there’s no current profit incentive to do that or they’d find some way to do it now.”
“people will die due to no access”
“Big Pharma = criminal enterprises!”
The people making those comments have zero understanding of or appreciation for how incredibly hard it is to invent a new pharmaceutical drug.
I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for the people who invented this new drug.
One legitimate point raised in this other thread is that a full course treatment of the drug in Egypt only costs $900. But there is a very valid explanation for this, and it has to do with the nature of intellectual property. Creating a new piece of intellectual property can be very expensive. For example, it can cost more than $100 million to make a new movie. But once that new piece of intellectual property has been created, it can be very cheap to manufacture copies of it. So, for example, a DVD of a movie can be manufactured for less than a dollar.
When people in the U.S. pay $84,000 for the drug, they are helping to pay for the very high cost of the research and development that went into inventing it. By comparison, when people in Egypt pay only $900, they are only paying for the cost of manufacturing it.
Any idiot can manufacture a copy of a drug that was invented by someone else.
But it takes a visionary, creative genius, or, oftentimes, an entire team of them, to invent a new drug as groundbreaking as this one.
Eventually, the patent on this drug will expire, and a far cheaper generic version will be available in the U.S. But until that happens, we need to let this company make huge profits from the drug, so it will have the means, as well as the incentive, to invent more new drugs in the future.
Another thing that I have noticed is that the people who get mad at the cost of this new drug, never get mad at the far higher cost of a liver transplant. Why is that? If it’s wrong to charge $84,000 for this drug, then why is OK to charge $577,000 for a liver transplant?
Apparently, these people at Democratic Underground would prefer that this new drug had simply never been invented.
I love civilization. I love technology. I love innovation. The people who invented this new drug deserve praise, not criticism.
