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covid vaccine

Forums covid vaccine

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    poppymac
    Participant
      maybe i’m out of order or wrong to think this but has anyone noticed how quick they found a vaccine compared to progress treating cancer
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        tkoss
        Participant
          i am still marveling at the cost of 1 dose of Opvidio.
            poppymac
            Participant
              in southern ireland i’ve heard pembro is 7000 euros per dose and as low as 4000 in uk
              tkoss
              Participant
                for a 240mg infusion the clinic charges $19,000 and insurance actually gets $9500. i once saw a price for a dose listed as $6500.000

                they are advertising the hell out of Opvidio and Keytruda on national TV. probably what a $50m campaign or more?

                poppymac
                Participant
                  do u mean insurance pays 9500 of the 19000 and if so who pays the remainder
                  tkoss
                  Participant
                    Welcome to the Ponzi scheme that is US health care. the hospital has a list price, insurers negotiate with them and ignore the list price. here is the rub; why do they have a list price so high? well you can always lower teh price i guess. like new cars.
                    I assume if your someone without Health Insurance they would bill you full price. $9500 seems fair for the infusion, if a dose of opvido really cost $6500. i get a few thousand dollars worth of nurses and technology and band-aids, etc.

                    does a does of opvido cost SBM $5500 to make and they mark it up $1000? or does it cost $9.95 to make and they mark it up $9490.05 . no one knows and they aren’t telling.

                    tkoss
                    Participant
                      ps: i just enrolled for 2020. the premium price jumped over $100 a month to $1100 and the out of pocket maximum doubled.

                      no warning, no explanation.

                      poppymac
                      Participant
                        in nhs england they initially agreed a big price but then when they saw results the cut it,in southern ireland they wanted to pay by success but that didn’t happen as only 1 in 5 had a good response
                        MelMel
                        Participant
                          Here is something more you can marvel on.

                          https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/can-23b-market-for-pd-1-blockers-cancer-grow-pan-adjuvant-use-key-report

                          Immuno-oncology drugs that block the checkpoint PD-1 have been one of the biggest success stories in the pharma industry, creating blockbusters like Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo and Merck’s Keytruda. The embrace of the drugs to treat many types of metastatic cancer has created a $23 billion market.

                          But that market is slowing, raising a worrisome question on Wall Street: How can companies like BMS and Merck continue to fuel the growth of PD-1 inhibitors?

                          The answer is in “pan-adjuvant” settings, in which patients are given PD-1 blockers before and/or after surgery along with other treatments to boost their chances of beating their cancer, analysts at Bernstein said in a note to investors earlier this week. For Merck and BMS, pan-adjuvant approvals could add at least $12 billion to their annual haul from PD-1 drugs in the next eight years—with the lion’s share of that going to Keytruda, they predicted.

                          MelMel
                          Participant
                            Melanoma is an extremely small market. Of 200,000 diagnoses per year, only stage IV and some stage III utilize the drugs which is even a much smaller amount of patients. These pharma companies require huge markets so they are looking to get approvals for their drugs in other areas to treat different cancers and as pan adjuvant treatment pre and post surgery. This would greatly expand their profits since the above link clearly shows how that particular drug market is starting to rapidly slow.

                            The prices are whatever the market will bear.
                            I used to live in Canada. A migrane pill was $11 Canadian per pill and here in MI one pill was $61 U.S. Viroptic eye drops are $39 Canadian in Canada versus $365 US here. Now tell me this is not absolute craziness? It literally makes your head spin.

                            If you have insurance, the prices are set. If you have no insurance some of the hospitals give you an automatic 40 % off. So it is what you can bargain for. I think there is lots of room for them to manouver. I get the feeling that they are operating like banks. They make their money in the first few infusions and the rest is just gravy.

                          MelMel
                          Participant
                            An excellent question and here is an article which may provide an answer.

                            “CANCER NEXT?

                            Moderna and BioNTech, for example, are also applying mRNA technology to experimental cancer medicines.

                            Biontech is testing an anti-melanoma mRNA with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche in a Phase II trial.

                            Among Moderna’s most advanced projects, besides its COVID-19 vaccine, are mRNA compounds to treat ovarian cancer or Myocardial ischemia, which are also in the second test phase.

                            None of the potential mRNA cancer therapies have reached the critical large-scale Phase III trials, however, and Kariko acknowledges that cancer presents a bigger challenge.
                            While a virus is a foreign intruder, cancer cells, however malignant, come from within the body, making them tougher to seek out and expose so they can be attacked.

                            “Sometimes cancer is just caused by gene and chromosome duplication and then everything about it looks normal and the cell is just dividing more than it should,” she said.

                            “The moment a pathogen’s genomic sequence is known, synthetic mRNAs can be designed that encode key parts of the virus, such as the coronavirus’s potentially lethal spike protein.”

                            https://mobile-reuters-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKBN27W2PJ?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16070458187642&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-health-coronavirus-vaccines-technolog-idUSKBN27W2PJ

                            So they are trying and Dr. Kariko and others who have been laughed and ridiculed by other scientists for years come out as winners in the end.

                            Melanie

                            JudiAU
                            Participant
                              The shameful thing is not cancer. Progress in cancer,, particularly in melanoma, is made every year and god knows I’m alive because of it. What really comes to mind is the sort pervasive, life-ruining, diseases that are endemic in “third world” countries than science rarely pays attention to because it is not profitable, well funded, or interesting.
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