Cancer - good news of a cure at last

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Pretty much ALL of that companies income comes from public heath service or health plans from the public. And most of the income goes to things like marketing and shareholders. And billions spent on fines.

Only a small fraction goes on R&D.

Pharma is a cash cow.

I'm not saying it's not. If it wasn't, new therapies wouldn't be developed. Governments don't do it.

Lots of things are cash cows. That's why people do them. Who dafuq would go into accountancy, for example, if it wasn't a potential cash cow? The law might be interesting, but conveyancing? Who'd choose that for the love of it?

Devil's advocate here. Why shouldn't the profit go to the shareholders? Nothing happens without them. The outlay is massive. With no guarantee of a useful, better than current treatment therapy at the end of a years long process. And then the next years long process of passing regulatory bodies to get approval for the various Stage I and II tests. And then more regulatory approval for purpose. And if it turns out that an unexpected side effect suits some other purpose better, back for more regulatory approval. And then it might be taken up and used. Or not. Or somebody else may have done it better in the meantime. Or technology has moved on. Your state of the art therapy is obsolete before it even starts. Drug/therapy development is a long term, long odds bet.

In most jurisdictions, this one included, company directors are required by law to maximise the interests of shareholders. That's a fact, and a board who didn't follow this might potentially find themselves open to legal action. A little bizarre, but true. That's something governments could address.

'Billions spent on fines' is a little disingenuous. Surely not all pharma companies are sued all the time. Some drugs and therapies are relatively inexpensive, work well, and just get on with making people better. Without making headlines better...

Hey, I'm not defending it.

What's your alternative?

What about the guy who bought the patent for that AIDS pill and immediately jacked the price up by something like 1,000%

Money is always more important than people's health.

Mr_Muffin wrote: »

I do think there will be a cure for cancer but not for at least another 100+ years at least.

I don't think there will ever be a cure for the blanket term of illnesses that fall under the name cancer, however I do think that there will be enough treatments out there that can be targeted to specific types of cancer(such as this immunotherapy, or herceptin for certain forms of breast cancer) that will make cancer a long term illness rather than a death sentence. Similar to HIV. They will never eradicate cancer as there are many genetic factors involved, however huge strides are being made.

cbyrd wrote: »

There's huge money in cancer, what I'd like to know is why it's become so prevalent in recent years? Billions in research and still nowhere near a cure. A cynical person would wonder if it wasn't being introduced through some method, say for example, an injection or series of injections, that causes the body to develop, over time, abnormal cells. The same cynical person would wonder how much money can be generated from these injections and the fear/guilt factor of not getting them for very young bodies ....
There's a lot of money to be made from making and keeping people sick ..
It's a funny business, illness, profitable one too..!

Ffs :rolleyes: antivaxers find their way everywhere now.

traprunner wrote: »

Hopefully a cure comes from this. However I don't get this big pharma thing. Yes there is money in pharmacuticals but to get a drug to market costs so much money. Profits from previous drugs help to fund this.

To say that pharmacuticals are not interested in curing cancer is crazy. Do people really believe that others put money ahead of a cure for a disease that has affected the lives of family and friends? Scientists are people too as are management in pharmacutical companies.

I'm a scientist. I worked on a very novel drug that is currently in phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of skin cancer and bladder cancer. My lab developed & patented a method of larger scale production of this drug. I cannot begin to explain the costs involved in any of the process, and that's before the clinical studies (which are showing very positive effects) commenced.

Drug development is expensive. Cancer isn't the only illness out there. I'm currently working on a therapeutic for psoriasis. However only about 1% (or maybe even less these days) of discoveries made in the lab actually make it to product for whatever reasons - safety, efficacy, cost... So the "profits" made by pharma go into developing new drugs for other illnesses.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If we cut out the profits and marketing and share holders then the same research could be done for a quarter of the cost.

Corporate welfare is one thing when it's money out of our pockets, when it means having to choose which patients are going to die because there are limited health budgets then it's morally indefensible.

Why would a pharmaceutical company work for no money?

Do you think marketing outweighs the cost of research.

Profits are vital for this as it goes back to shareholders who have financed the company in the first place.

If there were no profits these companies would not exists, research would not get done and advances in medicine would not be found.

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

-my own opinion here, I think our diets an lifestyles don't help us. Eating foods with a lot of chemicals, pesticides and things we don't need and are known to be bad for us. They are cheap and side widely available but they are not healthy. Eat junk for 20 or 30 years and your body ends but being made of junk and full of stuff that shouldn't be there.

I don't disagree that modern lifestyles have changed and certain aspects are a cancer risk, but it's not like people were living pure and clean lifestyles before 1970. Smoking, infection, excess alcohol, red meat, salt, excessive sun exposure, environmental chemicals, are all things that have been factors for humans for most of our existence and account for a majority of cancers.

The big one affecting us is obesity which is "new", but it also has a rather bizarre side-element where you're more likely to die from obesity than obesity-related cancer.

However this increase in obesity is offset by the massive improvements in infection control which have caused a large drop in infection-related cancers.

Luckily however, obesity-related cancer is an easy issue to solve and one that seems to be on a downward trend in the western world. Hopefully developing countries don't have to re-learn the same mistakes.

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

What's the problem with vaccination?

You'll probably regret asking that.

Why do so many people think pharma companies are out to kill you? Why is this such a common opinion? If they really didnt care about peoples health then why is there injections for MMR, TB, bubonic plague , all of these deadly diseases killed hundreds of millions of people for as long as humanity has been around. Why not just create an expensive pill we have to take everyday to keep us safe from these diseases if theyre so evil?

Yes pharma companies make profits, big profits even, but how can you blame a company for wanting to make profits. Big pharma companies have done a lot more good for society than bad.

suicide_circus wrote: »

^^^^ they're not "evil" but they're also not doing it for altruistic reasons.

And what big companies that benefit the health of the world, DO do it for altruistic reasons?

time to start smoking again