FabSwingers.com forum: cancer treatment : moral obligation

By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

I was watching the BBC News somewaht aghast this morning.

The story being discussed was that there may be a breakthrough in cancer drugs where although scientists can't cure the condition (yet), they may be able to manage it through drugs as we do with diabetes.

There was then some discussion that this would take up to 12 years and cost around £500 million to develop.

The bit that got me was that it was suggested that drug companies may not develop / market the necessary drugs because they won't be able to make enough margin or profit off them.

I believe that if we have the ability to manage cancer more effectively, then the drug companies should be putting morals before return as should the governments of the developed world

In terms of a £500 million investment, that's nothing over 10 years when you consider we can prop up tin pot dictatorships, bail out countries in financial crisis, provide millions in aid to countries suffering after effects of earthquakes / volcano damage / droughts etc

Thinking loudly here, surely the drug company that first develops and markets a cancer treatment of this nature would reap massive rewards in terms of profile / kudos associated with the breakthrough which would bring in additional margin from other areas to counter the reduced margin on the cancer treatments ?

Right - rant over !

Apologies if it is a serious / contentious issue so early in the morning but I really needed to get that off my chest.

Oh and apologies if I have misinterpreted some of the news item.

It was early and the tea and toast hadn't taken effect by that point lol

But irregardless, the basic question still stands !

Profits over moral obligation ?

By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

There are already a few drugs in use which oncologists are using in an attempt to control some types of cancer. Unfortunately, they are very expensive and at the moment they don't work for everyone and have huge side effects. I guess the drug companies may not develop more at this time, because due to the prohibitive cost of buying these drugs, and low outcomes, the NHS would probably not buy them, therefore the drug companies would not recoup their development costs or make any money from them

By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

"There are already a few drugs in use which oncologists are using in an attempt to control some types of cancer. Unfortunately, they are very expensive and at the moment they don't work for everyone and have huge side effects. I guess the drug companies may not develop more at this time, because due to the prohibitive cost of buying these drugs, and low outcomes, the NHS would probably not buy them, therefore the drug companies would not recoup their development costs or make any money from them "

astra zeneca profits 2010 £6.9 BILLION !

GSK profits 2010 £1.8 BILLION !

Bayer profits 1.72 BILLION euros !

even 5 or 10 % of those figures is a lot of money to push back into 'development' irregardless of the fact that the governments of developed countries should imho be assisting the companies with the developments

long term it would probably assist with meeting budgetary constraints within individual health care areas too

seems the current position is short termist rather than looking at the long game