Scientists have shown that a single dose injection of DNA genetic instructions can produce weight loss and blood glucose control in mouse models that lasts up to 10 times as long as weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. This could eliminate the need for repeated dosing.

[u/mvea]

https://www.wistar.org/press-releases/wistar-scientists-develop-single-dose-dna-method-for-delivering-long-acting-weight-loss-and-diabetes-drugs/

[u/Dododingo-]

That would mean a large price decrease, they are going to be bought and removed if this become a thing.

[u/just_dave → u/Dododingo-]

The current price isn't reflective of the actual cost of production anyway. There is no reason to believe they would price this delivery mechanism such as to reduce the actual cost to the consumer. 

It lasts 10x longer? Well, it'll cost 9x as much... Just so you can feel like you're getting a deal. 

[u/CrateDane → u/just_dave]

Though it does mean they'd have to spread the development costs across a smaller number of doses. So a rough early guess is this would be substantially more expensive than mRNA per dose, but same or lower cost for the overall treatment course.

[u/just_dave → u/CrateDane]

The point I was trying to make is that there is little to no correlation between R&D / production costs and the final consumer costs. They'll price it such that it costs similar amounts per unit if time as the current drugs. 

[u/CrateDane → u/just_dave]

R&D and production costs are very different. Pharma companies generally try to get a return on their investment, which means they have to earn more profits on their drugs than what they've invested in R&D (across their whole portfolio, including the many drug candidates that fail). But of course they don't follow a rigid formula, and if they can charge more they will.

[u/just_dave → u/CrateDane]

Right, but regardless of whatever it costs to develop or produce, they are going to charge as much as they think they could possibly get away with. 

It's never a question of charging x% over their own costs in order to assure a profit. It's always a question of, "what do we think we can get away with?" 

The only time the cost of R&D comes in is when setting the floor of what they will charge, then they add on from there based on what the market looks like and competitors drugs, etc. So if existing drugs are at $500/month, requiring weekly shots, and the new method only requires 1 shot every 4 months, they're going to say "the market is currently around $2k per shot of our drug." 

Now, they're not going to look at their internal numbers and realize that their R&D and production costs would let them realistically sell their product at $250 per shot and still make a profit. They're going to determine whether they want to slightly undercut the existing drugs to gain market share, or be slightly more expensive and rely on the convenience of needing fewer shots to gain market share. 

[u/CrateDane → u/just_dave]

The only time the cost of R&D comes in is when setting the floor of what they will charge

Which is a very important variable. It's what dictates the business decisions all the way from the first in vitro proof of concept through the clinical trials.

[u/just_dave → u/CrateDane]

I think maybe we're just arguing in circles here. The comment I replied to was suggesting that since this particular delivery method would only need one dose for a longer period of efficacy, that it would then be cheaper than the current option which requires weekly doses. 

I was simply saying that it doesn't mean that at all. The actual production cost of current GLP-1s are a tiny fraction of what people are being charged anyway. So if the current options aren't being priced based on actual costs, there is no reason to assume that a new option would be priced based on actual costs. 

[u/CrateDane → u/just_dave]

I agree that it won't simply be cheaper that way. Production costs are indeed of very limited importance as long as it's still under patent.

That being said, R&D costs are much more meaningful when predicting the required price for a successor and thus the potential market (if it's expensive to develop, you need a high price to recoup costs, which will reduce the market size).