Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

I would argue they price their drug just below the price of $6k to beat out the market of hearing aids.

Aside from the inexpensive materials and inexpensive manufacturing of their product, the good news is that 1/6 of the world is estimated to have some degree of hearing loss. The more people that share your ailment the cheaper it becomes per unit.
I hope you're right. It will be significantly more expensive until the drug gets a generic version.

Though I do doubt that since there are a bunch of people with hearing loss that it will be cheaper.
 
Some of you don't understand economics. At least 300 mil people have considerable hearing loss, more profitable to treat them all at $1k than just a small minority at a price of $25k.
 
Some of you don't understand economics. At least 300 mil people have considerable hearing loss, more profitable to treat them all at $1k than just a small minority at a price of $25k.

They have to cover the cost of production as well as cost of development. Development can sometimes be not only for the working drug but for all failed drugs that the company might have worked on before.

As harsh as it may sound but nobody works for free and when it comes to treatments that you would have to do only once or twice, opposed to drugs you have to take indefinitely, they have to make up for that by having the treatment be expensive. Drugs are typically patented for 20 years so that's the time frame they have to make money from their initial investment.

Typically when setting prices you make some kind of prediction as to how many customers/patients you would have at certain price points and then try to find an optimal price that would make you the most revenue.

I think it's very difficult to speculate about price at the moment. We will just have to wait and see what happens.
 
It should be clearly understood that as of today Frequency Therapeutics is the only real hope.

All other researchers, such as the Hearing Health Foundation, which has a large cohort of scientists, including Professor Stefan Heller, could not regenerate hair cells in adult mice in vivo today.
 
Let's make a simple calculation.

If insurance companies and/or health care systems cover the costs:

300,000,000 x 25,000 = economic crisis

You are not accounting for their costs. They wouldn't make 25,000 per treatment in profit. And also I highly doubt that 100% of all people that have tinnitus would have the treatment no matter the cost.
 
It's too early to talk about the price.

Naturally, at first the price will be higher, and then decrease with time. A patent will be valid for 20 years, if I'm not mistaken.

I think that the price above $5,000 is not entirely rational if they want to attract millions of patients from the countries of the Middle East, China, India, South America, Russia, and Eastern Europe, where the level of average wages per month is 500-700 dollars.
 
Some of you don't understand economics. At least 300 mil people have considerable hearing loss, more profitable to treat them all at $1k than just a small minority at a price of $25k.
You will also have to keep in mind that if it is approved by the FDA they will still have to do their testing and approval elsewhere. That will dramatically limit those who can get the treatment at first to the US.

To around 37.5 million, almost a 10 time reduction from 300 million. Even then, not all will get the treatment. Let's say maybe 1/3 of candidates would be able to afford the treatment because of expenses.

Suddenly the supply and demand market just got a lot smaller...
 
You are not accounting for their costs. They wouldn't make 25,000 per treatment in profit. And also I highly doubt that 100% of all people that have tinnitus would have the treatment no matter the cost.
That was of course just a naive calculation. I only used the $25k value and the 300 mil (the mentioned values) just to get a feeling for the numbers and why I believe they can't cover it in the first years. I think it will be a process that starts private first and will be integrated in health care systems later on depending on the result of the treatment (cure hearing loss/improvement in hearing loss/cure tinnitus/improvement in tinnitus/... etc.)

I compare it with my eyes. They might pay something for the glasses, but not for the contact lenses and not for the surgery.
 
It should be clearly understood that as of today Frequency Therapeutics is the only real hope.

All other researchers, such as the Hearing Health Foundation, which has a large cohort of scientists, including Professor Stefan Heller, could not regenerate hair cells in adult mice in vivo today.
Bruh, was it Frequency Therapeutics that did this study?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573859/

And what about Otonomy?
 
They have to cover the cost of production as well as cost of development. Development can sometimes be not only for the working drug but for all failed drugs that the company might have worked on before.

As harsh as it may sound but nobody works for free and when it comes to treatments that you would have to do only once or twice, opposed to drugs you have to take indefinitely, they have to make up for that by having the treatment be expensive. Drugs are typically patented for 20 years so that's the time frame they have to make money from their initial investment.

Typically when setting prices you make some kind of prediction as to how many customers/patients you would have at certain price points and then try to find an optimal price that would make you the most revenue.

I think it's very difficult to speculate about price at the moment. We will just have to wait and see what happens.
I have gone out of my way and incurred personal financial losses many times to help people.
 
I have gone out of my way and incurred personal financial losses many times to help people.

That is the double edged sword of capitalism and the free market. On one hand, free and open markets allow the pursuit of new ideas and is one of the primary drivers of innovation which then in turn converts to profit. The downside is that you gotta pay for the innovations....a small price to pay in this case in my opinion.
 
That is the double edged sword of capitalism and the free market. On one hand, free and open markets allow the pursuit of new ideas and is one of the primary drivers of innovation which then in turn converts to profit. The downside is that you gotta pay for the innovations....a small price to pay in this case in my opinion.
I think that the government should pay to develop medical technology to save lives and heal people just like they do to develop military technology to destroy lives and kill people.
 
That is the double edged sword of capitalism and the free market. On one hand, free and open markets allow the pursuit of new ideas and is one of the primary drivers of innovation which then in turn converts to profit. The downside is that you gotta pay for the innovations....a small price to pay in this case in my opinion.
The pharmaceutical industry is far from being a free market.

On the other hand, health should not be seen simply as a commodity.

It is a human right. The United States barely invest in medical research but instead invest in the private arms industry.

To get an idea, the United States spends $2.5 billion every day on its military, to make private owners of the arms industry rich at the cost of their citizens not having the right to health, and health becomes a business.

It's really embarrassing the percentage that Western states invest in medical research with our taxes and the money spent on business for private companies with weapons. The world upside down.
 
Let's say there is a cure approved in the US by 01.01.2020.

Are there any estimates when and how it will be available in Europe?

What's the process?
 
I think that the government should pay to develop medical technology to save lives and heal people just like they do to develop military technology to destroy lives and kill people.
No truer words were ever spoken. They should put this in quotations on a gold plaque or something. Gold star. Nobel peace prize. Hell, even a Tinnitus Talk trophy: JohnAdams award.
 
1: if you have cochlear implants you are disqualified from this treatment

2: if you have severe, profound hearing this treatment may not work as well on you

3: if you have mild hearing loss insurance will not cover this, especially if you have a mental illness to go with it

Modearate hearing loss is the Goldelocks zone

oh and should I mention the outdated tonal audiogram will be the final judgement for this test.
 
1: if you have cochlear implants you are disqualified from this treatment

2: if you have severe, profound hearing this treatment may not work as well on you

3: if you have mild hearing loss insurance will not cover this, especially if you have a mental illness to go with it

Modearate hearing loss is the Goldelocks zone

oh and should I mention the outdated tonal audiogram will be the final judgement for this test.
You're saying this only works for mild and moderate? Im moderate but this totally upsets me! I wish everyone had the cure, fuck this, everyone is worthy of a good research in order to find a cure to help people! This makes me mad, this is pure torture. This is hell. I really wish they continue doing their research in order to find a cure for all of us.
 
Why is it outdated? What is replacing it?

One reason is that the very high frequencies are never tested. It means that you can have normal hearing up to 8 kHz, but have a huge loss over 8 kHz.

I know for example one guy who is a musician. At 19 he had noise induced hearing loss, and he lost a lot of his high end hearing. He was able to hear up to 18 kHz, and after the noise induced hearing loss the hearing stopped at 12 kHz.


But because it is not tested, the ENT said "You have perfect hearing, don't worry ! :)".

He could have a treatment at this time which could reverse his hearing loss, but because of the lack of information from the audiogram, it has not been detected, so it has not been treated.


The audiogram itself is not bad, it is the way we use it which is not good enough.
 

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