This is real.

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[–] 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

biologics(this includes cancer biologics, autoimmune,psoriasis, eczema, and some rare diseases) is where pharms make thier money. because they are most thousands a month, wholesale, insurance is very stingy about covering certain biologics. although some do have a "coupon" option.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    The price of biologics kills me. I know it costs about $20 dollars for a month of GLP-1 agonists, because I've made similar peptides myself in grad school. Something like a Solid Phase Peptide Synthesizer runs $10-250K, but the cost to synthesize a 40 amino acid linear peptide at industrial scale is like...$0.30 USD per milligram. Shorter chain peptides are even cheaper. A 15AA linear peptide can be as low as $0.01/mg.

    There are of course other expenses, especially labor, facilities, certification, and waste disposal, but these companies are still easily making 40-50% profit margins on biologics. Compare this to non-biologics pharmaceutical profit margins around 15-25%, or for other industry comparisons, grocery stores around 1-3%, restaurants 3-10%, and software at 15-20%.

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