Chapter 407 Whose Fault Is That?

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"This kind of situation exists in the research and development process of many new drugs. The biggest cost that pharmaceutical companies need to bear is actually clinical and marketing promotion. Glenin's most expensive Phase III clinical trial was passed before it even started. It also helped them save a lot of capital costs. The update is the fastest ┏Ⅹ④③⑨⑨┛”

"So, the research and development of this new drug may have indeed cost a lot of money, but the cost borne by Nova is definitely not as much as they advertised. The pharmaceutical industry usually uses this sentence to justify drug prices: the cost of a drug is as long as 5 cents, but why sell it for 500 US dollars? Because it is the second drug, the cost of the first drug is 5 billion US dollars, this sentence also convinced a large number of people, but on the drug Glenin, this sentence The words are untenable, and the cost that Nova paid for the development of this drug is definitely not as much as 5 billion."

"Isn't this too dark?" Shen Long was dumbfounded after hearing this passage, there are so many ways in it? If Academician Ma Lin hadn't told him, he would have no way of understanding, and still regarded Nova as a pure and flawless white lotus.

"Pharmaceutical giants are behemoths with influence comparable to arms giants. If they were really pure, they would have been wiped out by capital long ago." Academician Ma Lin shook his head and said, "The black materials of pharmaceutical companies are far more than that. .”

"Tell me more." Shen Long was fascinated by what he heard, and quickly picked up the teapot and poured a new cup of tea for Academician Ma Lin.

"Profit-driven research and development of new drugs has allowed pharmaceutical companies to develop a variety of effective new drugs, but too much emphasis on profits has also caused many patients who cannot afford the treatment costs to be ruthlessly abandoned." Academician Ma Lin was aroused by Shen Long. Continue to tell him, "There is a disease called thalassemia, I wonder if you have heard of it?"

Shen Long shook his head again and again, he didn't know anything about it, Professor Ma Lin smiled and began to popularize relevant knowledge to him, "The scientific name of this disease is thalassemia, also known as thalassemia. Such diseases are mostly found in Southeast Asia and some black groups in Africa, what are the common characteristics of these patients?"

"Uh, it's true that the economy is backward. I'm afraid the patients don't have much money to spend on it." Shen Long understood this time.

"Yes, that's right. As early as 1982, when scientists were studying hydroxypyridone compounds, they discovered a new iron chelator, deferiprone. Deferiprone is an effective compound for treating thalassemia. The profit is too high, so European and American pharmaceutical companies have no plans to develop this drug at all."

"It was not until a few years later that Professor Yang Rui from the Department of Biology of Peking University developed this drug, which gave countless thalassemia patients in China the chance to continue to survive."

"Oh, that's Professor Yang Rui who claims to be the most handsome professor in the history of Peking University?" This Professor Yang has a great reputation,

Even a layman like Shen Long has heard of his name.

"Yes, that's him." Speaking of this, Academician Ma Lin sighed, "It's also fortunate that in China, we still have a group of benevolent scientific researchers and have certain drug research and development capabilities. Africa, that would be even more pitiful."

"There is a disease in Africa called sleeping sickness, which is caused by the infection of Trypanosoma brucei gambiae. During the onset of the disease, one will lose control of one's consciousness and fall into a coma, and once comatose, one cannot wake up again. There are hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people in Africa. Millions of patients; a pharmaceutical company accidentally invented a drug that has a very good effect on sleeping sickness, but after it was put on the market, it was found that only a few local chiefs could afford it, and they could not make money at all, so Production of this drug was discontinued."

"Now, even those rich chiefs can't buy their lives with money; but later, by chance, the pharmaceutical company discovered that the important active ingredient in this drug has a unique use in women's beauty, So production resumed; the lives of millions of Africans are not as valuable as the beauty of European and American women, do you think it is sad?"

Shen Long and Academician Ma Lin smiled wryly at the same time. It's really thanks to our country's strength, otherwise those patients with thalassemia would be like those African chiefs.

"In recent years, the situation has improved a lot. The World Health Organization has been committed to eliminating sleeping sickness. Bayer will stop supplying 400,000 tablets of special drugs for the treatment of this disease to the World Health Organization every year. The incidence of sleeping sickness has dropped from hundreds of thousands per year. down to tens of thousands per year."

"In addition, those pharmaceutical giants will also abuse patent protection to seek excess profits that they should not have earned. China invented a cheap method of synthesizing vitamin C, and the pharmaceutical giant Roche bought the right to use it around the world except China. , but they still use the old production methods, bundle the obviously cheaper methods, and continue to sell vitamin C at high prices on the grounds of high production costs. The whole world, except China, has to accept their exploitation."

"There is also Daraprim, which was only sold for 13 US dollars in the early days. Later, when there was only one pharmaceutical factory with a production license, the managers from Wall Street directly raised the price of the drug to 750 US dollars, and the production cost remained the same. No change, compared to this, what is the profit margin of drug production and trafficking?"

"Of course, this matter went too far. The manager was later imprisoned for other illegal activities, but those drugs that tripled or quadrupled did not pay attention to the media."

"In recent years, have you found that there are fewer and fewer drugs that used to work very well in pharmacies? This is the result of pharmaceutical companies' pursuit of profits."

Shen Long originally thought that these were already dark enough, who knew that Academician Ma Lin hadn't finished yet, "Between a thorough treatment of a certain disease and long-term medication to prolong life, the former is obviously the best for patients, but pharmaceutical companies absolutely Will choose the latter without hesitation; a universal vaccine for a disease costs fifty dollars per patient, no one will do it; a one-time treatment costs four hundred dollars, few people do it, and will be rejected by pharmaceutical companies The patents held hinder it; a course of treatment worth a thousand dollars or even tens of thousands of dollars, which can only prolong life but is not a cure, is the object of enthusiasm of pharmaceutical companies.”

"The benevolence of the doctors, the benevolence of the doctors, I don't know where these people's benevolence is!" Professor Ma Lin shook his head again and again, the more he talked, the more he felt blocked.

"So, those pharmaceutical giants are the ones doing the evil?" Shen Long felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what was wrong.

"No, you can't say that. It's not the pharmaceutical factory that's guilty, but the unscrupulous capital behind the pharmaceutical factory."

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