If it worked, how much might it roughly cost per treatment, at scale?

Actually, when in the lifecycle of developing a treatment does anyone have a real idea of what cost will be? Can anyone know this yet?

In terms of where _prices_ are set, that negotiation is a function of efficacy relative to other things in the market right? If it ends up treating cancers that each already have a reasonably effective treatment, maybe the pricing isn't that high -- but if it is effective in cases where currently there are no options, the price should be high?

But for something that potentially works against a range of cancers, should we expect to see a sequence of more specific trials (i.e. one phase 1 for basic safety, a bunch of phase 2s for efficacy on specific cancer types, a sequence of phase 3s in descending order of estimated market value? And in 10 years, Alice and Bob with different cancers will pay radically different amounts for almost exactly the same treatment but with small variations in some aspect of the formulation so they can be treated as distinct products?

	▲	mike_d an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Pharmaceutical companies don't just fund research without having a model of the expected costs to bring something to market, the expected market size, and the viability and cost effectiveness of other potential treatments. They have entire teams of people who figure out the viability and pricing of therapeutics before the first dollar is spent, with estimates getting refined the further you get along in the cycle.

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alansaber 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As far as nanomaterial assembly goes MOF syntheis is pretty scalable

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stevekemp 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Does the cost matter? Many countries subsidize healthcare, so there's either no charge or a token payment which doesn't even pretend to cover the cost of treatment.

Other countries use insurance, so once again the end cost is essentially irrelevant.

	▲	skeletal88 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The cost absolutely matters. If something costs tens of thousands of € per month for a long time then it will either not be approved or will be used very rarely. The cost is not irrelevant because the insurance does not have infinite money. They need to decide which cures, medicines, operations they fund. They can spend 1000€ to cure 100 people of something or to spend 100k to maybe cure someone with an experimental treatment. This is one of the issues with the modern cancer cures, thst they are very specific to the cancer, the patient, need one off lab work for each patient and this makes them very expensive and not affordable to many. Despite having public healthcare the managers of it still need to decide what to spend their limited funds on.
	▲	Groxx 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Yes? Countries that subsidize healthcare don't calculate infinite value per person.
	▲	nickjj 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Other countries use insurance, so once again the end cost is essentially irrelevant. I think it matters because oftentimes insurance companies won't cover treatments if a cheaper form of treatment exists. It doesn't matter if the old treatment is less effective or a much worse outcome for a patient. This is especially true for "new" treatments.
	▲	inglor_cz 44 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Cost is always relevant, given that the amount of money in any healthcare system is limited and someone must decide whether to pay for patient A or patient B.
	▲	esafak 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Of course it does. Countries have budgets. Expensive drugs aren't doled out like candy; they require screening, waits, connections, and even bribes.