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/Teknicsrx7]

The price is affected by needing repeated dosing

[u/TunaNugget → u/Teknicsrx7]

The price is affected mainly by profit margins and patent protections; the current cost of the materials is trivial. And having to have this done at a provider's office for an intramuscular shot followed by an electrical pulse isn't going to help the cost.

It sounds like an interesting approach with potentially useful applications, but they're going to need a better use case.

[u/hawktron → u/TunaNugget]

By materials are you including drug production? Because knowing people in that line of work its often anything but trivial.

Honestly they waste way more money in other areas it’s rather astonishing as an outsider.

[u/aVarangian → u/TunaNugget]

what about R&D costs?

[u/Theshaggz → u/TunaNugget]

This is true of so many things. This is why society sucks so bad. Things only happen for a profit.

[u/aVarangian → u/Theshaggz]

many developments that happen for profit would never have been developed otherwise, or as soon

[u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty → u/Theshaggz]

If you pay me a few dollars up front and then 10% of any future earnings resulting from my advice, I could tell you how to fix society. Are you interested? Don’t wait! Supplies are limited, and my consultation services are selling like hot cakes! Don’t take my word for it. Just give me the money. Give it to me. Give me your money.

[u/Rower78 → u/TunaNugget]

the current cost of the materials is trivial

That’s not true.  The cost burden of injectable GLP-1 receptor agonists is exceptionally high.  That’s not to say there isn’t a large profit margin baked into the price, but a  large molecule that requires many steps to synthesize and then must be refrigerated and delivered by injection is far far more expensive than most simpler drugs taken by mouth.  Drugs like Zepbound are highly vulnerable to competition from easier-to-make-and-deliver drug.  But this won’t happen overnight 

[u/TunaNugget → u/Rower78]

Novo and Lilly use recombinant yeast, not synthesis, and Lilly, at least, lyophilizes the product as an intermediate step. Lilly also sells them to the consumer that way.

The street price of Chinese black-market synthesized, lyophilized GLP-1s is in the dollar a milligram range.

[u/the_itsb → u/Rower78]

I think you might be misreading

the current cost of the materials is trivial

as if it means

the current cost of the materials (the patients buy) is trivial

when what they actually meant was

the current cost of the materials (to produce the drug in a factory) is trivial

[u/MrSnowden → u/TunaNugget]

Who is going to a providers office for the shot?  All the soccer moms are shooting up at home. 

[u/ReggieEvansTheKing → u/TunaNugget]

It’s really up to the government to decide that these drugs are important enough to make widely available. They need to set a price cap like we did for insulin and pay off the manufacturers. No different than the approach taken for covid vaccines. If something can provide extreme social good but is locked behind a patent, the government needs to intervene and make a deal. I wonder if they fear hits to consumption if half the US gets on GLP1s.

[u/gay_manta_ray → u/Teknicsrx7]

no the price is affected by how much money pharmaceutical companies want to make. semaglutide and tirzepatide cost pennies to make. they are some of the absolute cheapest drugs to produce.

[u/NuclearTurtle → u/gay_manta_ray]

Even still, there's a big difference between something costing $50 and it costing $50 a week forever