<story><title>Company threatens to sue volunteers who 3D-printed valves for coronavirus aid</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21184308/coronavirus-italy-medical-company-threatens-sue-3d-print-valves-treatments</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Narkov</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not $11,000 for a plastic valve. It&amp;#x27;s $11,000 for a plastic valve and the many thousands of hours of R&amp;amp;D, testing, validation, certification and risk.</text></item><item><author>jagger27</author><text>$11,000 for a plastic valve. Unreal. No wonder hospitals are always stretched to the limit when they&amp;#x27;re being gouged like this.&lt;p&gt;Think of it this way, a hospital could buy 10 valves or hire a physician for a year. Are these valves typically re-used? Are they going through them faster because they don&amp;#x27;t want to risk infecting other people?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>caymanjim</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not $11,000 for a plastic valve. It&amp;#x27;s $11,000 for a plastic valve and the many thousands of hours of R&amp;amp;D, testing, validation, certification and risk.&lt;p&gt;Nope. Sorry. Not buying that argument this time. I accept that argument for patent exclusion periods and high prices on medication, because the R&amp;amp;D has enormous risk costs when medications don&amp;#x27;t work or don&amp;#x27;t get approval. Allowing pharmaceutical companies to recoup those costs is vital to innovation and public health. This is a piece of plastic that&amp;#x27;s part of a larger machine. There was no enormous R&amp;amp;D budget required to develop the replaceable component. By all means let them make money on the machine, but the argument doesn&amp;#x27;t hold up for this simple maintenance component.</text></comment>
<story><title>Company threatens to sue volunteers who 3D-printed valves for coronavirus aid</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21184308/coronavirus-italy-medical-company-threatens-sue-3d-print-valves-treatments</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Narkov</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not $11,000 for a plastic valve. It&amp;#x27;s $11,000 for a plastic valve and the many thousands of hours of R&amp;amp;D, testing, validation, certification and risk.</text></item><item><author>jagger27</author><text>$11,000 for a plastic valve. Unreal. No wonder hospitals are always stretched to the limit when they&amp;#x27;re being gouged like this.&lt;p&gt;Think of it this way, a hospital could buy 10 valves or hire a physician for a year. Are these valves typically re-used? Are they going through them faster because they don&amp;#x27;t want to risk infecting other people?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jagger27</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s say the regulatory costs add up to $100,000,000 and the valve has a marginal cost of $1.00 to make and distribute. They would have to sell just 10,000 units to more than offset  their investment. I think I&amp;#x27;d wager the world needs more than 10,000 air valves.&lt;p&gt;How can one justify this kind of vicious exploitation of publicly funded healthcare?</text></comment>