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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

This seems implausible. It’s extremely difficult to find cures in the first place, and in the event a company does, the US is willing to pay a ton for them (see recent Hep C medications).

I would need more proof before being able to believe an executive team would throw away a sellable cure for an extremely low probability of finding a longer term rent seeking subscription plan.

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I recently learned of some research that had a human trial that looked like it could potentially cure Multiple sclerosis (MS) and even potentially many (maybe all?) autoimmune diseases. However, it was too expensive, so no pharmaceutical companies picked it up. It was only when the researchers found a cheaper way of doing it that biopharmas were interested.

Source is in this video, link starts at 5:35, watch until 8:15ish. https://youtu.be/J8vdDy7SN9k?t=335

Not all diseases are bad enough to justify enormous pricetags for a cure.

I am not aware of any diseases where the US government would not pay for a cure if there is a known cure for it because the price to “how bad is the disease” ratio is too high.

What do you mean? The US government doesn't buy cures.

It's called an orphan drug--when it's too expensive to make a profit on it, the FDA (IIRC) steps in and subsidizes it.

I actually meant that Medicare/Medicaid/Tricare (aka US government) do not specifically reject treatment because of price. ACA also requires managed care organizations (aka health insurance companies) to cover pretty much all proven treatments.

As an example, the new Hep C medications are $80k+ per dose or something if I recall correctly, and Medicaid pays for it.

This is certainly true, but it describes why companies don't start or continue the research. This has nothing to do with killing off a clinical stage drug because it was "too successful".

The latter, as reported by GP, doesn't seem very plausible.

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