It is wrong to paint all pharma companies with the same brush

Drug discovery is a very high-risk and expensive business, according to recent data, it takes more than 1 billion USD  and almost 12 to 13 years to launch a new, successful drug in the market. One can debate and discuss why this process is so low-yielding, expensive, and inefficient, but people who work in this area know that it is not that easy to point out any single factor responsible for this bleak scenario. It is also true that we need new drugs to stay ahead in our battle against many bugs and deadly diseases like infectious diseases and cancer. Industry and academia are equally engaged in the research aspect of drug discovery, many initial leads come from academia that result in small biotech firms which then go on to develop some novel drugs in that therapeutic area. Even though industry and academia are both equally involved in basic research, commercialization, and drug development part of drug discovery is exclusively with industry. One of the main reasons is that it is a very expensive and tedious process with a very high failure rate and only industry has funds and resources to handle this process. So what is my point behind mentioning all these things? The point is the question of "drug pricing," an ever-debated and very controversial topic all over the world, especially, in America. I think everyone will agree that people should be able to access life-saving drugs if they need them, but the question is who will pay if they can't afford them? If we look at the pricing of some of the new drugs in developed countries, especially in the USA, then one can easily understand what I am talking about. For example, the price of Gilead's new hepatitis-C drug Sovaldi is 84000$ for a 12-week course, almost 1000$ per pill. No doubt, it is an expensive drug by any standards, but it is also a very effective and lifesaving drug that has changed the treatment regime for that disease remarkably. This drug is just one example to show how effective and expensive some of these medicines are. Drug development is a profit-making business and like any other business, this industry also tries to make as much profit as they can from their products. There are shareholders and a stock market and each pharma company has to make sure that it stays ahead in the game by making as much profit to its shareholders as it can.

It is always debated what can be the optimal pricing for any life-saving drug? Who can decide how much a drug company should or can charge for their new lifesaving drug? How expensive is too expensive? How about third-world countries where most people can not pay for such expensive drugs but need them as much as people from any developed country? There are many questions like this but hardly any satisfactory answers. In the US there is a very good drug discovery culture and basically, they subsidize drug discovery for the rest of the world. In most developing countries like India, drug discovery is considered a waste of money and there is no proper mechanism to encourage it. So, basically whole world is dependent on a few handful countries for the development of new drugs in any therapeutic area. Hopefully, this scenario might change, but currently, only developed countries are expected to carry the financial burden of developing new drugs. And as the pharma sector is also a business and like all other businesses, it also needs investments and has to generate enough profits to attract those investments. So, all factors that play a major role in any other commercial industry also play a part in this industry also. Whatever is not financially attractive is not pursued no matter how important it might be, the recent exit of most major pharma companies from the antibiotic sector is one very good example of this. It is very expensive to develop new drugs, and above that it is very risky, only 1 in 10 drugs that enter in clinical phase get FDA approval, and someone has to pay for all those failures. The industry has to recover all the money lost during the development of other drugs that failed from that one successful drug. This is one of the major reasons why some of the drugs are so expensive. However, this is not an attempt to justify the high pricing of all the drugs, but just an effort to explain things so that people know the other side of the coin also.

I am sure everyone will agree that the best possible scenario will be to have affordable drugs for all major illnesses available all over the world. They should be accessible to every patient who needs them, irrespective of their nationality or financial status, but we all know that this feat is not possible to achieve in the near future. With increased life expectancy all over the world, we are going to see many more people who will need some sort of medicine to maintain their health. There are no easy solutions for this very complicated problem, but maybe if we try to understand the cause of this problem then we can understand the position of the pharma industry a little better. It is wrong to paint all of them as villains and accuse them of being insensitive and selfish money-mongers. Drug discovery is a business so like all other businesses it needs to be profitable, it needs to compete with other businesses to attract talented and hard-working people so that innovative ideas keep on coming. This business also needs to adjust and survive different pressures and trends of a market-based economy. Society, the government, and all companies need to devise some formula that can make medicines more affordable for everyone. The Pharma industry is just one part of this complicated puzzle of drug pricing. At the same time, any sort of criticism should be welcomed by industry insiders as it will make them correct some of their mistakes, but it is unfair just to blame them or target them every time. It is wrong to look at only one side of the problem and draw final conclusions. Please try to study every angle of this issue before coming out with any final conclusion. I am sure it can be possible to keep on inventing new drugs and make them affordable also, we just need a proper system and political and corporate desire to achieve this goal.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Instead of anti-abortion protests fund some path breaking research ideas

I always see a few people outside of Planned Parenthood centers on weekends and also on some days during weekdays protesting against abortion. They carry some posters and banners with pictures of babies or human fetuses. Some of their posters claim that the life of every baby is important, I don't think there is anyone who can disagree with this statement. Most people love babies, and most of the world thinks that every born individual should get to live in a peaceful and civilized world that is why we care about our environment and society so much. One of the aims behind all our efforts is that we want to give a better society for future generations. Even though humans are one of the animal species living on this planet, we are radically different than all other animals and we are also on a continuous quest for improvement on many fronts. So, no one disagrees with all babies' lives being important, but the main point of disagreement is not babies or their lives after they are born, but the right of women to have a choice of abortion. It is a sensitive political and social issue in American politics, it is so polarizing that there are very extreme opinions about this. According to me, it is utterly stupid to call someone pro-abortion or anti-abortion, after all, it is the personal decision of that particular female (or couple) whether they want to give birth to a child or not. Who am I, the government, or anyone to decide about their parenthood? After all, that female has to bear the pain of childbirth and once someone becomes a parent, then they need to take care of their born child. Some people want to take that responsibility of parenthood and some don't, some are just not yet ready for this, so, it is their personal decision. Also, fertilization and reproduction are a routine biological phenomenon that happens in every animal species, there is no divinity or any supernatural power involved in this process. A sperm fertilizes an egg and an embryo is formed, we know this process, it happens with other animals also, and we study about this in biology class. I wonder what is other's problem if any female decides to terminate the pregnancy for personal reasons. There could be so many reasons starting from some personal reasons, some health issues, pregnancy because of sexual abuse or rape, or even some economic reasons, it differs from case to case why someone takes this decision. We are really struggling on social and political levels to find an acceptable solution for this problem. Some groups are dead against abortions, some support with some conditions and some consider it as women's right to choose what they want to do. There are some valid points with every side but unfortunately, there is no common ground on which all parties seem to agree.

According to me, there is a strong possibility that science can help to resolve this complex issue. Especially, it might help these pro-life people to solve their difficulty of worrying about every embryo formed. If the concern for every embryo is so important then they should aggressively fund research to develop techniques that can make it possible to carry out the entire pregnancy and childbirth outside the human body. So, in this technique, once an embryo is formed, either inside a human body or in a lab, and concerned people don't want it, they can donate it anonymously and it can be processed in a lab independently in the same way as the body normally develops into a baby. This will eliminate most of the troubles or inconveniences associated with pregnancies and these pro-life people can take care of all these embryos and resulting babies on their own and everyone is happy. People who don't want to become parents can get rid of unwanted pregnancies and people who are so concerned about those embryos can take care of them, both sides get what they want. This research will definitely put an end to the need for abortion. It will also avoid other troubles like going through the trouble of pregnancy followed by childbirth and then putting that child up for adoption, these new centers run by pro-life groups can take the fertilized egg and develop it into a baby and take care of it till they become adult, just as parents do. Even this can be beneficial for other parents who want to have their own biological child but don't want to go through the hassle of pregnancy and stuff related to it. This idea might sound like science fiction, but I am sure this is achievable. Every day new frontiers are conquered in the scientific world and I am sure with proper funding and backing this also can be achieved. This has the potential to solve a major social and political issue of our times. Once we solve this issue then we can focus on many other important issues that require our attention like education, poverty, the economy, etc. I hope this suggestion finds some takers at least from the pro-life groups, after all, this is about saving those embryos for which they are tirelessly protesting for so many years. I am not joking or being sarcastic here, I really thought about how to resolve this issue so that lawmakers of this great country don't waste time debating about this personal health issue of women. Also, I am not at all against these protests, I completely support their right to express their disagreement. I absolutely have no issues with their protests or any other protest as long as it is peaceful. I am just interested in finding some permanent solution for this long-standing problem. Out-of-body pregnancy and childbirth are bound to become reality sooner or later, so why not consider this possibility now itself which can help us to resolve one very sensitive issue. This idea has the potential to solve this problem for everyone. I am sure some people might have other ideas also which I hope they share openly. Efforts of all of us might help to eliminate the rift between these so-called pro-life and pro-choice groups so that we can focus on other important social issues.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]