re:
The other Emanuel is also a weasel. When he writes: "Because it
costs at least $1 billion to develop a new drug, the prize money could
provide a 100 percent return — even before sales", note the "could"
and the "at least". He knows that the latest estimate published puts
the cost of a new drug at $2.6billion, putting the claimant of such a
$2billion prize firmly back in the red.
Worse, when he writes that " any new antibiotics that might be
developed to fight these drug-resistant bacteria are likely to be used
very sparingly under highly controlled circumstances, to slow the
development of resistant bacteria and extend their usefulness" he
ignores the history that shows we can expect a pirate lab
(traditionally in India) to immediately start producing the same
compound in violation of the patent. "[H]ighly controlled
circumstances" might apply within the U.S., but new resistant
organisms would be cultivated elsewhere by over-use of the pirate
product.
But he's not done. By the end of the column, what had been a
$2billion dollar prize is now $2billion per year. Surely the merit of
a plan that depends on cash incentives depends on knowing what it
costs.
No patient should trust a physician as lawyerly as Dr. Emanuel. No
nation should be guided by his counsel.
Barry Haskell Levinehttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/how-to-develop-new-antibiotics.html?_r=0
How to Develop New Antibiotics
To the Editor:The other Emanuel is also a weasel. When he writes: "Because it
costs at least $1 billion to develop a new drug, the prize money could
provide a 100 percent return — even before sales", note the "could"
and the "at least". He knows that the latest estimate published puts
the cost of a new drug at $2.6billion, putting the claimant of such a
$2billion prize firmly back in the red.
Worse, when he writes that " any new antibiotics that might be
developed to fight these drug-resistant bacteria are likely to be used
very sparingly under highly controlled circumstances, to slow the
development of resistant bacteria and extend their usefulness" he
ignores the history that shows we can expect a pirate lab
(traditionally in India) to immediately start producing the same
compound in violation of the patent. "[H]ighly controlled
circumstances" might apply within the U.S., but new resistant
organisms would be cultivated elsewhere by over-use of the pirate
product.
But he's not done. By the end of the column, what had been a
$2billion dollar prize is now $2billion per year. Surely the merit of
a plan that depends on cash incentives depends on knowing what it
costs.
No patient should trust a physician as lawyerly as Dr. Emanuel. No
nation should be guided by his counsel.
Barry Haskell Levinehttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/how-to-develop-new-antibiotics.html?_r=0
No comments:
Post a Comment