I’m unsure if this is the best place to share this article :
https://beyondtype1.org/who-will-profit-from-the-cure-for-type-1-diabetes/
Of course this is a reasonable place to share that article. It echoes the concerns I felt when Sanofi purchased control of Afrezza and then did a truly inadequate job of getting it out into the market. Or when Medtronic purchased control of UnitedHealthCare’s insulin pump market, which appears to have been their strategy for competing with the smaller, more nimble pump companies.
Thank you for posting this. While I don’t feel the same as the author I can absolutely understand it. I think most of us can agree that when the first company comes out with a “cure” for Type 1 it will be a great day. I for one, don’t care at all which company profits, and there will be large profits from this breakthrough when it happens.
If it is a one-time treatment, similar to the hepatitus-C cures, then of course the company will price it with a lifetime value model of $250,000 - $500,000 or more because it will have the capacity to reduce lifetime spend on medications, treatments, physician visits, complications etc. This will be true even if the treatment itself costs pennies.
if it is a periodic treatment, i.e. has to be repeated every 6 months, then the price will be lower in line with the “value” the treatment provides.
When the HepC treatment first came out, prison systems would have been bankrupt if they treated every prisoner, but slowly the price has come down as competitors have come on the market. The same will happen with the Type 1 cure(s) when they arrive.
I am optimistic this will happen in my son’s lifetime.
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