<story><title>Pfizer&apos;s oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%</title><url>https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/pfizer-s-oral-covid-19-antiviral-cuts-hospitalization-death-by-85-sending-team-barreling-to</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>toyg</author><text>One one side: great job, pharma industry! We&amp;#x27;re gonna live forever!&lt;p&gt;On the other side: what are you folks not curing, with your magic powers, just because you know you won&amp;#x27;t be able to make a buck from it...?</text></item><item><author>savant_penguin</author><text>And it&amp;#x27;s here in _two_ years</text></item><item><author>shusaku</author><text>I think it’s hard to overstate what a big deal this is for science. This is a completely novel molecule that appears effective as an antiviral. This would a huge achievement for the field of drug design, and will hopefully lead to all kinds of great medicine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>et2o</author><text>Researchers in pharma are working extremely hard and almost always in good faith.  I know this is probably tongue-in-cheek but it&amp;#x27;s not true.</text></comment>
<story><title>Pfizer&apos;s oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%</title><url>https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/pfizer-s-oral-covid-19-antiviral-cuts-hospitalization-death-by-85-sending-team-barreling-to</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>toyg</author><text>One one side: great job, pharma industry! We&amp;#x27;re gonna live forever!&lt;p&gt;On the other side: what are you folks not curing, with your magic powers, just because you know you won&amp;#x27;t be able to make a buck from it...?</text></item><item><author>savant_penguin</author><text>And it&amp;#x27;s here in _two_ years</text></item><item><author>shusaku</author><text>I think it’s hard to overstate what a big deal this is for science. This is a completely novel molecule that appears effective as an antiviral. This would a huge achievement for the field of drug design, and will hopefully lead to all kinds of great medicine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chadash</author><text>Unfortunately, it&amp;#x27;s expensive. The cost of R&amp;amp;D to bring a new drug to market is around $1 billion, and this doesn&amp;#x27;t include the cost of marketing (though it does include the cost of drugs that fail the approval process)(see &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jamanetwork.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;jama&amp;#x2F;fullarticle&amp;#x2F;2762311&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jamanetwork.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;jama&amp;#x2F;fullarticle&amp;#x2F;2762311&lt;/a&gt;). At these numbers, it&amp;#x27;s hard to raise the money unless you think the drug is gonna be profitable.</text></comment>