Goldman Sachs Says Curing Disease Is Bad For Business

[haidut]

I must have had this conversation hundreds of times with doctor friends of mine. Namely, I keep bringing up the issue that curing a disease is really not a good business model for most pharma companies. The response I always get is that this is a conspiracy theory with no evidence behind it, and that there is a ton of money to be made in curing something like diabetes, CVD or Alzheimer. So, as I keep getting told, all biotech companies actively try to produce something that actually cures a disease.
Well, one company took that approach and is now brutally punished by Wall Street. Goldman Sachs's analysts actually took the rare step of stating that curing a chronic disease indeed NOT a good business model and the stock has since tanked. So, don't expect a true cure to come any time soon from a publicly traded company that is mandated by law to increase shareholder value and not do much else.

Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?'
"...Goldman Sachs analysts attempted to address a touchy subject for biotech companies, especially those involved in the pioneering "gene therapy" treatment: cures could be bad for business in the long run. "Is curing patients a sustainable business model?" analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled "The Genome Revolution". "The potential to deliver 'one shot cures' is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies," analyst Salveen Richter wrote in the note to clients Tuesday. "While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow."

"...Richter cited Gilead Sciences' treatments for hepatitis C, which achieved cure rates of more than 90 percent. The company's U.S. sales for these hepatitis C treatments peaked at $12.5 billion in 2015, but have been falling ever since. Goldman estimates the U.S. sales for these treatments will be less than $4 billion this year, according to a table in the report. "GILD is a case in point, where the success of its hepatitis C franchise has gradually exhausted the available pool of treatable patients," the analyst wrote. "In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines …"

 

[Cirion]

I've been saying this for so long... so that's not a surprise...

But what I want to know is why businesses that thrive on creativity, passion, and high work output don't push harder for cures though. For example as an engineer that works for a big corporation that sells airplanes and other things, we have to be creative, put in plenty of work hours, and get stuff done. Being unhealthy is detrimental to the business, in this case. So I can understand why big pharma doesn't like cures, but why don't businesses like my own want their employees to be healthy? Wouldn't promoting health in this case, help their business not hinder it? Healthier people are more creative, have more energy, can handle stress better etc... is this not what a company like my own would want? They don't seem to care here either though. Sure they give us healthcare and whatnot, and there are some "health services" but they're woefully lacking.

 

[Ideonaut]

Anyone who expects capitalist medical care to treat them as as anything other than a SUCKER is out of touch with reality. As far as I am concerned medical care is one segment of the economy that should be socialized. Another is military production. Both for obvious reasons.

 

[LCohen]

Stupid f*cks. I hope they all die painfully.

 

[Kartoffel]

This would be important, if any of these gene therapies actually had the potential of delivering any cures or long-term benefits. As it is, Goldman don't have to worry about any of their scientists discovering a miracle gene therapy for anything.

 

[haidut]

why don't businesses like my own want their employees to be healthy?

They do, but they can't do much to cause cures to happen since this is controlled by another industry. Also, the mantra in modern society is "divide and conquer" and specialization. So, even if an aerospace company wants its employees to be healthy, it is conditioned to believe that another industry will take care of this problem. After all, who dares to think that hundreds of billions of dollars thrown at a problem may be in vain...A realization like that can lead to serious social unrest.
Also, for many large corporations (and especially governments) employment is more important than progress (or health for that matter). Maybe not your company but other corporations that depend on government money certainly fit that bill.
Finally, healthy people tend to be independent and hard to control. Economists have been publishing for years that social peace depends on sickness and old age. Think about it. What can control a healthy, young, talented person? Not much other than terror/fear, so a great deal of resources is dedicated to ensure that this group of people is in the minority and even then it is tightly controlled.
Revolutions are never started by 50+ years old sickly people, you know

 

[tankasnowgod]

Anyone who expects capitalist medical care to treat them as as anything other than a SUCKER is out of touch with reality. As far as I am concerned medical care is one segment of the economy that should be socialized. Another is military production. Both for obvious reasons.

Well, that may be true, but I live in the United States, which has not had Capitalist Medical Care since the 1930s, when Medicare and Medicaid was forced on the public. It's been socialized medicine since then, even if it's "lite socialism."

I personally hate socialized medicine. I really don't think there should be any major third party payers (governments, HMOs, Insurance Companies and such) in medicine.

 

[tankasnowgod]

As a regular member of this forum, and someone who has been learning about institutionalized fraud in the financial system......... It is so weird hearing a major banker like Goldman Sachs state such a truth.

 

[tankasnowgod]

This would be important, if any of these gene therapies actually had the potential of delivering any cures or long-term benefits. As it is, Goldman don't have to worry about any of their scientists discovering a miracle gene therapy for anything.

Goldman is a bank, so I don't think they employ many scientists. But they are a massive bank, so I could be wrong.

 

[Makrosky]

I've been saying this for so long... so that's not a surprise...

But what I want to know is why businesses that thrive on creativity, passion, and high work output don't push harder for cures though. For example as an engineer that works for a big corporation that sells airplanes and other things, we have to be creative, put in plenty of work hours, and get stuff done. Being unhealthy is detrimental to the business, in this case. So I can understand why big pharma doesn't like cures, but why don't businesses like my own want their employees to be healthy? Wouldn't promoting health in this case, help their business not hinder it? Healthier people are more creative, have more energy, can handle stress better etc... is this not what a company like my own would want? They don't seem to care here either though. Sure they give us healthcare and whatnot, and there are some "health services" but they're woefully lacking.

It's the "invisible hand" concept of Adam Smith my friend. That's why nobody cares.

 

[Cirion]

It's the "invisible hand" concept of Adam Smith my friend. That's why nobody cares.

It also doesn't help that most people have taken the blue pill and just go about their own business not realizing what's going on.

All of my relatives (except my parents) believe all their ill health is due to "getting old" and blindly take whatever meds their Dr. tells them to.

Even though I've been unhealthy a long time, my personality type is so strong that I've always questioned authority, even when my body was high serotonin. I think once I achieve health I will make it my mission in life to expose corruption as well as teach people how to be healthy.

Attempts to control and subjugate me will never work, even with hormone manipulation :P

 

[tankasnowgod]

It's the "invisible hand" concept of Adam Smith my friend. That's why nobody cares.

If by "Invisible Hand," Adam Smith meant "The FDA runs cover for Big Pharma while putting up enough barriers to prevent competition from small businesses," then sure.

 

[haidut]

Attempts to control and subjugate me will never work

See my response to you earlier. Subjugating people like you is the very goal of most governments. Otherwise, the social order collapses as the able and willing will never agree to be slaves voluntarily.

 

[tankasnowgod]

As far as I am concerned medical care is one segment of the economy that should be socialized.

I wanted to expand a bit on why I think socialized medicine, especially in the United States, is a completely evil idea. And I do mean "evil."

First, the US Government mandates that toxic scrap metal be added to bread and cereals, through their policy of mandatory iron fortification. While you could argue that they didn't know they were poisoning their own citizens when it started in the 40's, they most certainly knew in the 70's, when Iron Researchers like E.D. Weinberg and Jym Moon testified that raw iron in these cereals was poisoning many, and not helping anyone, and that the program should be terminated. Instead of ending the program, they upped the amount of iron required.

Secondly, the US Government has blasted it's own citizens with radiation for experimental purposed without their knowledge or consent. A sitting President admitted as much-



Based on those two reasons alone, I do not believe that the Federal Government should be in charge of anyone's health.

 

[haidut]

I do not believe that the Federal Government should be in charge of anyone's health

Agreed...and neither should monopolistic corporations, which are completely above the law even if they admit to purposefully kill millions. I think there is not much point talking about private industry and government any more as if they are different entities. It is all one big "industrial-military-pharma-technology-agriculture complex", which has fused with the government agencies that are supposed to regulate it.
The type of capitalism you speak of is early stage capitalism which ended probably before WWII. There are still small pockets of it, mostly as startups but very rarely any of these disrupt the big players as they get quickly bought or sued out of existence if they do not play ball.
My personal experience is that ALL governments over the last 80-100 years exist primarily to enslave talent and youth in service of corrupt and sick/evil interests. It does not matter much if it is "communism" or "capitalism". None of these really exist any more.
It's more like a giant, evil, politically-agnostic empire with no borders.

 

[fujija]

Well, that may be true, but I live in the United States, which has not had Capitalist Medical Care since the 1930s, when Medicare and Medicaid was forced on the public. It's been socialized medicine since then, even if it's "lite socialism."

I personally hate socialized medicine. I really don't think there should be any major third party payers (governments, HMOs, Insurance Companies and such) in medicine.

Why?

 

[tankasnowgod]

Why?

What part are you referring to?

 

[schultz]

As far as I am concerned medical care is one segment of the economy that should be socialized.

I've been thinking about this recently. I am not very knowledgeable about economics and politics really, though free markets seem to make sense to me. I listen to the Shapiro Show daily and he talks about free markets frequently, and uses laser eye surgery as an example, but that is not a very good example in my opinion because it is an operation with simple results that are easy to see (yes, snuck a pun in there!). What about something like statins? Ray says they are poison (I agree) and yet many people and institutions see them as life saving miracle drugs. The negative effects might be slow and long term, and the public may not be able to discern these effects from other medication they are taking or even just aging in general. You would expect a 50 year old to get less healthy by 70, but how much of that is due to a statin or some other drug? So how can the free market sort these things out?

I'm not sure the answer is to socialize medical care necessarily, but maybe scientific research? Universities are funded by the government to some degree so this is sort of already happening but I think the entire system needs to be revised. The research needs to be publicly available (not behind paywalls) and transparent. Problems arise when industry "donates" to schools and also when certain researchers want fame or to prop up a certain line of research that is probably useless so that they can get funded for 30 years. After 30 years these experts are not going to want to admit how silly that research has been since it is their life work, so they will still cling to it.

I'm sort of rambling...

Somebody needs to organize my thoughts for me!

 

[Rafe]

I recall that this statement came out about a year ago, if i’m remembering right. And it was specifically in reference to Harvoni, a hep-C drug. At the time I thought that it didn’t matter whether the curative properties of the drug were correct or not (I think it exacerbated hep-B in the process), but it was a brilliant reverse psychology ad campaign aimed at the Boomer demographic. It’s about 90k, so if you did the math, and if hep-c is at a peak in Boomers b/c the blood supply wasn’t screened for it until screening for HIV (late 80s?) started, then, cure or not, pharma makes what they can from it before it’s irrelevant.

 

[Tenglish]

Another model: Bloomberg - Are you a robot? "The still-unnamed business will initially seek to develop ways to improve care for the more than 1 million individuals who get health insurance from the three firms. Over time, the venture will make those innovations available freely to other companies"...we will see but it's the most hopeful private venture to re-align screwed economic incentives in a while.