"Curing diseases is not business": a report by Goldman Sachs reveals the great ethical dilemma of the pharmaceutical industry

Curing diseases is not business. Or, to get strict, curing diseases is not good for the long-term benefits of pharmaceuticals. No anti-science activist says so: they are the conclusions of a Goldman Sachs report on biotechnology that has just transcended in the press.

For years, the argument "cure is not business" has been used as part of the argument of many groups that (with greater or less rigor) questioned the practices of the pharmaceutical industry. However, it was not a real problem because the sad reality is that our technological development did not allow us to cure (many) diseases independently of the income accounts. Many times we have managed to chronify them. But gene therapy appeared.

A great value for society is not always of great value in the market

Precisely, that is the report of Goldman Sachs, on the 'genomic revolution' (in fact, it is called "The Genome Revolution"). That is, they focus more on the future of biomedical development than in the past. To make it, they asked their clients directly if "curing patients was a sustainable business model" and the conclusion is clear: "No".

I quote:

The potential to administer 'total remedies' is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy [...]. However, these treatments offer a very different perspective with respect to recurrent admissions versus chronic therapies. While the proposal has tremendous value for patients and society, it could pose a challenge for genomic medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.

The big problem of the new biomedical industry

The best example of this is Gilead Science. This company markets treatments for hepatitis C with an effectiveness greater than 90%. In 2015, treatment sales reached 12.5 billion. This year's forecasts stand at 4 billion this year. We are facing one of the great ethical problems of modern biomedicine.

The report establishes some strategies to ensure the long-term profitability of biotechnology companies: targeting large markets (diseases with a high annual growth rate such as hemophilia that grows at 6-7% per year), addressing disorders with high incidence or innovate constantly and expand the portfolio of solutions.

This can solve long-term problems. and yet, there is something of all this that is extremely familiar to me. He wanted the chance that the report transpires coinciding with the anniversary of the Salk vaccine against polio. It's interesting because Salk gave up patenting and, thanks to that, we're about to eradicate it. Has the moment of open-source reached the pharmaceutical industry?