"It's fast because we've pretty much determined that the drug works, eliminating the most critical steps, and many big pharma companies often take up to a decade to develop a new drug." Academician Ma Lin said with a smile.

"Speaking of drug research and development, I think of a movie I watched last year, have you seen "I Am Not the God of Medicine", there are many questions in it that I haven't figured out, and I want to ask you for advice." Shen Long hurriedly said, the problem of medicine is extremely professional, and laymen can't figure out the doorway inside.

Academician Ma Lin nodded and motioned for Shen Long to speak, Shen Long asked, "This movie looks quite worrying, but after watching it, if you think about it carefully, it seems that except for Zhang Changlin, who sells fake medicines, there doesn't seem to be a real villain; At that time, I was very unhappy with the representatives of pharmaceutical companies, but I checked some information and found that, as you just said, the research and development of new drugs often takes billions of dollars and a long time, and it seems normal for them to sell at such a high price. ”

"After all, there is nothing more than profit-driven to promote scientific progress, if the development of new drugs is not profitable, those pharmaceutical companies will naturally not spend their energy on it, now the price of special drugs is expensive, but there are always eats, if no one develops new drugs, then you can't eat if you want to."

"Well, what you said does have some truth, but it's still too simple to look at the problem, and the problems reflected in this movie are very realistic and sensitive, so the director didn't show it in many aspects." Professor Ma Lin took a sip of tea and said, "Take Gleevec in "I Am Not the God of Medicine", this medicine is actually not quite different from ordinary drugs. ”

"First of all, do you know that the global price of this drug is the most expensive in China?" Professor Ma Lin asked rhetorically.

Shen Long shook his head, "It shouldn't be, it stands to reason that China's economy was still very underdeveloped at that time, and its per capita income was far from that of developed countries in Europe and the United States, even if Glenin's selling price should not be cheaper than that in Europe and the United States, at least it must be the same, right?" ”

"The fact is that Glenin is more expensive in China than in Japan, Europe and the United States, and there are many reasons for this, because there are several types of drugs sold in our country, one is the government's pricing, such as vaccines and other widely used essential drugs, and the government will limit profits through pricing so that more people can use it."

"One is market regulation, let the market regulate the price of these drugs, usually due to the fierce competition, the price of such drugs will not be very high; There is also a type of government-guided price, which limits the maximum retail price; Grenin belongs to the individual pricing, Nova has the full pricing power, they like to sell as expensive as they like, this situation is not appropriate, and now the state is adjusting the relevant policy, but it has not yet taken shape. ”

"Another reason is that the circulation of Chinese medicine was too complicated, from the factory pricing of drugs to hospital pharmacies, there was too much gray space in the middle of the link channel, which also increased the cost invisibly, resulting in patients having to bear higher prices."

"When Glenin entered the domestic market, the market price was 23,500 yuan, but the movie was sold for 37,000 yuan, what is the reason for the extra price difference?"

"This point has improved in recent years, since Dr. He Ruyi is in charge of the drug evaluation center, began to promote the pharmaceutical two-invoice system, drugs from the pharmaceutical company to the hospital or pharmacy terminal, at most there can only be one circulation link, only allow the pharmaceutical company to the agent, the agent to the terminal 2 invoices exist, effectively reduce the cost of drug circulation, limit the gray chain."

"The last reason is that China's pharmaceutical industry was relatively backward back then, not to mention innovative drugs, even generic drugs were difficult to produce, and the market lacked competition, so the price naturally could not be reduced; However, this situation has also developed well, and the level of generic drug production in China has improved, such as Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Factory launched Jinge immediately after Pfizer's Viagra patent expired. ”

We don't need this thing at all, even if the price is reduced, it has nothing to do with us.

"There are also a number of pharmaceutical companies that have completed the production of generic drugs, and the price has reached eight or nine hundred and less than a thousand yuan a box, which is almost the same as in the movie, and if you count inflation and other factors, it is even cheaper than in the movie."

"But this is a case where the patent has expired, right? The patent of Nova in the movie has not expired, and even if it has the ability to imitate it, I am afraid it will not be able to produce it, right? Shen Long was a little regretful, otherwise with the knowledge and technology he got from Lao Bai, he could have successfully imitated it.

"That's true." Academician Ma Lin did not talk deeply about this issue, "However, the development cost of Glenin is not as high as that generated by Nova and is not used for massive testing in the development of other drugs, and the academic community has identified the cause of this disease at the beginning and named it the Philadelphia chromosome." ”

"After more than 20 years of meticulous research, the academic community has completed the important pre-work of targeted drug development without any funding from Nova Company; Subsequently, Brian Drucker, a member of the American Academy of Sciences, worked on targeted drug development at Harvard Medical School and the Oregon Oncology Institute. ”

It wasn't until five years later, when Lydon, a researcher at a pharmaceutical company, participated in the experiment, that pharmaceutical companies first appeared in Grenin's development; Eight years later, Lydon's company merged with another company to form Nova Company, and Lydon was fired, and Nova tried to axe the Grenin project, but it was Drucker who persuaded them to keep it. ”

In 2001, the drug was finally developed, and the biological mechanism of the molecules that make up the drug was confirmed by Professor Gureyan of Rockefeller University; Because of the outstanding effect and the biological mechanism has been determined by the academic community, Glenin passed the FDA approval and was successfully marketed before the phase II clinical trial was completed and the phase III clinical trial was not started. ”

"You must know that in clinical trials, the first phase has the lowest cost, maybe 10 million can be won, the second phase is about 50 million US dollars, and the third phase is the most expensive, with a cost of up to 300 million US dollars. This has saved Nova a lot of money. ”

"Pharmaceutical companies do need to bear a lot of costs to develop new drugs, but in the Grenin drug, Nova obviously does not invest so much, and most of the expenditure in the new drug research and development stage is borne by Harvard Medical School, Oregon Oncology Institute and other institutions, and Nova misleadingly counts this part of the cost borne by social public funds into its own research and development costs, which is obviously unreasonable."