Cost of Speeding Up Development of Real Treatments

Hi folks,

I am trying to get a sense of how expensive it would be to meaningfully speed up research into tinnitus.

For example, suppose we asked this question: How many dollars would we have to throw at tinnitus research in order to speed up delivery of the first *real* treatment by 1 year, relative to the status quo if no money is given? Would it cost $1M, $10M, $100M, $1B, $10B, etc.? I actually have no idea how to answer this question, but I'm curious what folks think the scale of the number is.

As one data point, the amount spent on hearing aid sales is apparently $6B per year globally. While hearing loss and tinnitus aren't the same thing, this makes me think that $10M for example won't really move the needle (it would need to be $100M or more).

 

>$200M.

 

I don’t know about “speeding it up”. I’m not sure what you are asking exactly. Are you talking about throwing all the resources available at once? Research goes at the pace it can based on two things: funding and outcomes. Funding doesn’t necessarily speed things up but most times it can.

A novel drug will cost upwards to $1B to get to market. It can be as low as $300-500M but the more complex the drug, the more expensive. Also, if it is based on an existing drug, the costs drop considerably. You could likely get a drug to market in the $10s of millions if a platform for a similar drug already exists.

 

I guess I'm trying to quantify the benefit of an additional $X research dollars. I thought that "the speed with which the $X will accelerate the first treatment" seemed like a useful way to quantify the benefit. If that is not a good way to quantify the benefit, what is a better way?

 

It’s not that easy. There are so many factors that there is no way to quantify this on a theoretical proposition. Every research team/organization is structured differently. You have institutional vs. private research. Then you have the complexity of the drug being researched as well as government regulations. Through some of these steps, money makes no difference, it’s just a waiting game.

So in short, there is no way to quantify what you are asking.

 

They knew how to speed it up with COVID-19, but tinnitus is low on the totem pole, no speeding up. And the price would be high, but we are low on budget.

 

Tinnitus does not have an effective treatment (yet) because it is still partially and poorly understood. My opinion is that 10-15 labs, scattered throughout the world in the leading universities and with the correct leaders, would push the knowledge significantly ahead. Once the phenomenon is understood, a treatment would follow immediately.

 

The more the better I guess. Look at the COVID-19 vaccines (and antivirals to a lesser extent). The researchers had basically infinite money at their disposal and all administrative work was prioritized over everything else.

In my opinion we first need to find out what causes tinnitus, tensor tympani syndrome and hyperacusis. Then we can look for an actual treatment/cure.

Once a possible treatment has been found, money usually isn't a problem anymore (look at Otonomy or Frequency Therapeutics, they have millions to run their clinical trials). However, all the work that comes before that is chronically underfunded.