Biotech Values

[bladerunner1717]

jq,

I respect your opinion on all matters biotech, as you well know. But to make vague forecasts about what will happen in ten years is not very useful, IMO. No, not even the Markets are looking that far out.

What is far more useful is to consider what will happen in the next four years or so. Unlike Dew and PGS, I don't think the U.S. is moving toward a model that is anywhere near like England or "the rest of the world." In fact, the U.S. is moving in just the opposite direction. Of course, doing something to curtail costs on the model of NICE is something you will find more on the Obama agenda than you will on the Romney agenda. But, in fact, neither can do much towards curbing costs in the present political/ideological atmosphere, except by reducing Medicare and the number of Medicare recipients and/or, in the case of Romney, by reducing the number of people with access to health care and health insurance (e.g., reducing Medicaid). But you and I both know that the trajectory will hardly be influenced by these measures.

Simply pointing out that something seems "unsustainable" to you doesn't mean that something has to happen. (Hey, people have been saying for decades now that Japan's debt to GDP ratio--now at 260%--is "unsustainable," but it nonetheless has and is continuing. Will there be a day of reckoning? Of course. But no one knows when exactly that day is coming. Although, Gary Shilling thinks it is very soon. LOL)

I don't think that something "has to give" at all, especially on drug pricing. Drug costs are only about 9% of total health care spending. And Americans pay less for generics that just about any advanced country in the world. The WSJ has said the government can save about $68 billion/year just by the FDA clearing the backlog of generic drug applications. With many of the best-selling drugs now generic (e.g., Lipitor) and with FOB's on the way, I don't see attacks on drug prices as a priority for anyone wishing to reduce the costs of health care in this country. People, i.e., politicians, will certainly pay lip service to the idea, but I doubt whether anything substantial will take place in that regard now or in the foreseeable future.


Bladerunner