So what is the truth?
Does every cure get to the patients and does it get there at a reasonable price?
We know that treatments are regularly denied because they cost £20,000 for the drug?(The NICE upper limit for financing treatments) yep that right drug companies charge up to and over 20k for a months supply of some drugs...
Well we are getting a bit off track here from your original assertions...
The truth is complex...
Bottom line:
All the easy drugs have been discovered.
New expensive drugs aren't significantly better than existing generic ones so won't be approved.
The cost to get a new drug to market is in excess of a billion dollars.
Regulators now require method of action to be understood.
This money has to be recovered in order to be profitable and to develop any new drugs.
Big Pharma no longer has the cash to throw a billion bucks at something
Your £20k drug might extend a single persons life by a miserable month. That £20k can be put to better use elsewhere.
I had dinner the other night with the person responsible for all European/Asia academic collaborations with a big pharma. I presented the scenario where a UK university had discovered "The Cure For Cancer" and offered their research to the big pharma in return for cash up front and a royalty, what would the pharma do.
Their response: Pharma would require data to show it worked.
My Response: Too expensive for the university to do the trials.
Their response: Too expensive and risky for the pharma to get involved so won't get taken up by them without further data.
Bit of a catch 22 really.
