Drug Companies Dragging Feet on AIDS vaccine?

[Texsox]

CNN Health Link

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an unusually candid admission, the federal chief of AIDS research says he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for the HIV and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one.

 

That means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing new medicines and bringing them to market.

 

"We had to spend some time and energy paying attention to those aspects of development because the private side isn't picking it up," Dr. Edmund Tramont testified in a deposition in a recent employment lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.

 

Tramont is head of the AIDS research division of the National Institutes of Health, and he predicted in his testimony that the government will eventually create a vaccine. He testified in July in the whistleblower case of Dr. Jonathan Fishbein.

 

"If we look at the vaccine, HIV vaccine, we're going to have an HIV vaccine. It's not going to be made by a company," Tramont said. "They're dropping out like flies because there's no real incentive for them to do it. We have to do it."

 

"They will eventually -- if it works, they won't have to make that big investment. And they can make it and sell it and make a profit," he said.

 

More at link.

[EvilMonkey]

Just a thought, but maybe the companies are fearing that if they invest the billions into developing the drug, that it will just be taken away from them to help all the people around the world with AIDS, thereby losing the immense 'value' that they should get from developing such a drug. You just know that you would have the UN clamoring for the evil drug companies to simply donate their new wonder drug to all the poor nations in Africa who simply couldn't afford to purchase it. And even here at home the various AIDS groups would be demanding that it be rpovided for free to people. How long until our knee-jerk government simply takes it away and does just that? Not saying they are right, but that it could be the reason.

[Balta1701]

Just a thought, but maybe the companies are fearing that if they invest the billions into developing the drug, that it will just be taken away from them to help all the people around the world with AIDS, thereby losing the immense 'value' that they should get from developing such a drug.  You just know that you would have the UN clamoring for the evil drug companies to simply donate their new wonder drug to all the poor nations in Africa who simply couldn't afford to purchase it.  And even here at home the various AIDS groups would be demanding that it be rpovided for free to people.  How long until our knee-jerk government simply takes it away and does just that?  Not saying they are right, but that it could be the reason.

Heck, it's not even that as much...everyone these days in the medical industry knows that there's vastly more money available in drugs like Viagra than there is in vaccines, simpy because if you develop a vaccine/cure for a virus, people need to take it one time, but if you develop a drug like viagra, claritin, a heartburn drug, or something silly like that, the profit margins are massive because you need to take it hundreds of times, as each pill is necessary.

 

That's the same reason why there are only like 1-2 flu vaccine makers available...the market favors drugs that you need to take many times. There is very little market value in actually curing any disease, only in treating a disease.

 

This is one of those cases where the market is driving the wrong way, and the only solution is government investment. The Market would like nothing better than to develop a drug that you need to take for the rest of your life to control the symptoms of AIDS, but if you develop an actual cure, then the makers of all those drugs that you need to take to keep the disease under control would lose tons of money, and so the drug companies have very little impetus to actually develop a cure.

 

Sometimes the government needs to intervene in the private market to force it in a direction it doesn't want to go. Drug research is a prime example (note, the Bush admin. is already doing something similar with avian flu - there is promising research into new techniques for creating flu vaccine but the drug companies don't want to pay for it because there's so little profit in flu vaccine, so the Bush Avian Flu plan included hundreds of millions to try to perfect those better methods to produce vaccine)

[timotime]

magic johnson is no longer HIV positive...does anyone here know of that? if you can afford it, you can beat it.

 

problem is, most people with AIDS are junkies and/or degenerates (there are, of course, exceptions) who cant afford the treatment Magic could.

 

such is life. ce la vie.

[southsider2k5]

magic johnson is no longer HIV positive...does anyone here know of that? if you can afford it, you can beat it.

 

problem is, most people with AIDS are junkies and/or degenerates (there are, of course, exceptions) who cant afford the treatment Magic could.

 

such is life. ce la vie.

 

Do you have a link for that bit of info?

[Iwritecode]

Heck, it's not even that as much...everyone these days in the medical industry knows that there's vastly more money available in drugs like Viagra than there is in vaccines, simpy because if you develop a vaccine/cure for a virus, people need to take it one time, but if you develop a drug like viagra, claritin, a heartburn drug, or something silly like that, the profit margins are massive because you need to take it hundreds of times, as each pill is necessary.

 

That's the same reason why there are only like 1-2 flu vaccine makers available...the market favors drugs that you need to take many times.  There is very little market value in actually curing any disease, only in treating a disease.

 

This is one of those cases where the market is driving the wrong way, and the only solution is government investment.  The Market would like nothing better than to develop a drug that you need to take for the rest of your life to control the symptoms of AIDS, but if you develop an actual cure, then the makers of all those drugs that you need to take to keep the disease under control would lose tons of money, and so the drug companies have very little impetus to actually develop a cure.

 

Sometimes the government needs to intervene in the private market to force it in a direction it doesn't want to go.  Drug research is a prime example (note, the Bush admin. is already doing something similar with avian flu - there is promising research into new techniques for creating flu vaccine but the drug companies don't want to pay for it because there's so little profit in flu vaccine, so the Bush Avian Flu plan included hundreds of millions to try to perfect those better methods to produce vaccine)

 

 

Seems like it's that way with just about everything anymore. Mostly electronic stuff.

 

Sure they could make something that lasts 50 years but instead make it last 1-5 years so you have to go out and buy another one when it breaks/quits working.

 

Then they really get you with the warranties that cost extra $$$ and they always expire right before it quits working...

[Steff]

magic johnson is no longer HIV positive...does anyone here know of that? if you can afford it, you can beat it.

 

problem is, most people with AIDS are junkies and/or degenerates (there are, of course, exceptions) who cant afford the treatment Magic could.

 

such is life. ce la vie.

 

 

Bulls***.

[Balta1701]

magic johnson is no longer HIV positive...does anyone here know of that? if you can afford it, you can beat it.

 

problem is, most people with AIDS are junkies and/or degenerates (there are, of course, exceptions) who cant afford the treatment Magic could.

 

such is life. ce la vie.

Magic Johnson at last report had "undetectable" amounts of the virus in his bloodstream. That does not m ean he is no longer HIV positive, it means that the expensive drugs he has been taking have managed to keep the virus count down, as happens with many patients who are placed on the powerful mixtures of drugs currently available. Here's a link to an old AP story on this.

 

Powerful drugs have reduced the AIDS virus in Magic Johnson's body to undetectable levels, his doctors said Friday.

 

''Earvin is doing very well,'' Drs. David Ho and Michael Mellman said in a statement. ''However, we must emphasize that 'undetectable' doesn't equal 'absent.' It would be premature and incorrect to say Earvin is 'virus-free.'''

 

The doctors added: ''We are very pleased he has adhered to his daily drug regimen and that is reflected in his good health.''

 

Thousands of HIV patients have also seen their infections recede to undetectable levels after taking drug ''cocktails'' containing protease inhibitors, approved last year by the Food and Drug Administration.

 

A patient with undetectable virus levels can still infect others. Even if the virus is undetected in blood or semen, it can be present in other areas, such as the intestines....

 

Nearly 90 percent of the people who take the powerful drugs within a few months of being diagnosed HIV-positive have undetectable levels similar to Johnson's condition, said Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, an AIDS researcher at Cornell Medical Center and a consultant to the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

[Mplssoxfan]

Heck, it's not even that as much...everyone these days in the medical industry knows that there's vastly more money available in drugs like Viagra than there is in vaccines, simpy because if you develop a vaccine/cure for a virus, people need to take it one time, but if you develop a drug like viagra, claritin, a heartburn drug, or something silly like that, the profit margins are massive because you need to take it hundreds of times, as each pill is necessary.

 

That's the same reason why there are only like 1-2 flu vaccine makers available...the market favors drugs that you need to take many times.  There is very little market value in actually curing any disease, only in treating a disease.

 

This is one of those cases where the market is driving the wrong way, and the only solution is government investment.  The Market would like nothing better than to develop a drug that you need to take for the rest of your life to control the symptoms of AIDS, but if you develop an actual cure, then the makers of all those drugs that you need to take to keep the disease under control would lose tons of money, and so the drug companies have very little impetus to actually develop a cure.

 

Sometimes the government needs to intervene in the private market to force it in a direction it doesn't want to go.  Drug research is a prime example (note, the Bush admin. is already doing something similar with avian flu - there is promising research into new techniques for creating flu vaccine but the drug companies don't want to pay for it because there's so little profit in flu vaccine, so the Bush Avian Flu plan included hundreds of millions to try to perfect those better methods to produce vaccine)

 

Beat me to it, Balta. Low economic incentive will always mean that Pharma giants will be reluctant to devote large sums to vaccine R&D. After all, regardless of what their ads tell us, they're not in business to make us all well, they're in business to make a profit.

[Texsox]

Do you have a link for that bit of info?

Magic told him personally, right before they had a magical night together

 

 

 

 

 

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