[Steve_Seattle]

Is the high cost of dosage related to recovering research and development costs, or is it just real expensive to produce? If the former, the costs should go way down over time, especially if the drug has an unanticipated application for AZ disease, which would dramatically increase the demand.

[CholeraJoe]

Is the high cost of dosage related to recovering research and development costs, or is it just real expensive to produce?

Probably both. Enbrel's been around about six years I think, so it's got a few years before the patent runs out. It will never get cheap, though.

[Billthedrill]

It's difficult to produce. It isn't synthesized in a yeast cell, where you can ramp up production in industrial-sized vats. It's produced in a mammalian cell (CHO, or Chinese Hamster Ovary) that is much more difficult to keep active and clean in large batches. So you have to build lots of small reactors to produce the stuff.

You have to keep this stuff incredibly pure because it's used in such small amounts with such large systemic effects. That costs, too.