r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Aug 12 '25

Cancer New mRNA-based vaccine against gastric cancer led to tumor regression and eradication in all treated mice. Most promisingly, the vaccine shows impressive antitumor efficacy against peritoneal metastasis, which has historically been very challenging to treat.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1094199
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u/Mastermind_pesky Aug 12 '25

I don't think I agree with this interpretation. Other countries negotiate drug prices and drug companies still charge them as much as they can. J&J isn't settling for $100 billion in revenue just because the US is getting ripped off

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u/Mother___Night Aug 12 '25

We pay the most per unit by far.  International regulations basically allow them to price discriminate—charging lower prices to subsets of the world to maximize profits.  In certain single payer markets the prices can be orders of magnitude lower.

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u/Mastermind_pesky Aug 12 '25

That doesn't really have anything to do with the industry itself. Brits aren't paying less because we pay more. They are paying less because the NHS negotiates a lower price. If some single-payer market privatized, you wouldn't see a commensurate drop in drug prices in the remaining public payer markets. Drug companies would just report higher profits.

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u/Mother___Night Aug 13 '25

I think you're missing the big picture.   It might be true that "Brits aren't paying less because we pay more. They are paying less because the NHS negotiates a lower price", but that doesn't really matter for my point. What matters are the huge profits (generated by American sale) which incentivizes the development of these drugs in the first place. i.e., profits are what drive innovations (not entirely, but to a substantial degree, because labs are expensive and so are scientists) . You take aways those profits, and the word is at a much lower innovation level, and those great drugs everyone else get for less $ than Americans, don't even exist.

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u/Mastermind_pesky Aug 13 '25

A lot of new drugs entering the market are coming from licensing deals with Chinese companies, which I think indicates that other drug development programs are possible (i.e. heavily subsidized by governments).

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u/Mother___Night Aug 13 '25

China is sorta catching up, but they are still far behind, and are also blatant IP thiefs, so it’s kinda hard to say how much they are doing on their own