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From "pharma bros" to everday household budgets, just how did the
pharmaceutical industry betray its own history-and how can it
return to its tradition of care? It's an unfortunate and
life-threatening fact: one in five Americans has skipped vital
prescriptions simply because of the cost. These choices are being
made even though we have reached a point in the conveyance of
medical options where cancers can be cured and sight restored for
those blinded by rare genetic disorders. How, in this time of such
advancements, did we reach a point, where people cannot afford the
very things that could save their lives? As the COVID-19 global
pandemic has pointed out, we need the leadership of scientists,
researchers, public health officials and lawmakers alike to guide
us through not only in times of a global health crisis, but also
during far more mundane times. For the first time in decades,
people from all walks of life face the same need for medicine. It
is time to discuss the tough questions about drug pricing in an
open, honest and, hopefully, transparent manner. But first we must
understand how we, as a society, got here. Medicines are arguably
the most highly regulated-and cost-inflated-products in the United
States. The discovery, development, manufacturing and distribution
of medicines is carried out by an ever more complex and crowded set
of industries, each playing a part in a larger "pharmaceutical
enterprise" seeking to maximize profits. But this was not always
the case. The Price of Health is the reveals the story of how the
pharmaceutical enterprise took shape and led to the present crisis.
The reputation of the pharmaceutical industry is suffering from
self-inflicted wounds and its continued viability, indeed survival,
is increasingly questioned. Yet the drug makers do not shoulder all
the blame or responsibility for the current price crisis. Deeply
researched, The Price of Health gives us hope as to how we can
still right the ship, even amidst the roiling storm of a global
pandemic. How have medicines have been made and distributed to
consumers throughout the years? What sea of changes that have
contributed to rising costs? Some individuals, actions, and systems
will be familiar, others may surprise. Yet the combined
implications of these actions for will be surprising and at times
shocking to both industry professionals and average Americans
alike. Like so much else in human history, the history of the
pharmaceutical enterprise is populated mostly by well-intended and
even noble individuals and organizations. Each contributed to the
formation or maintenance of structures meant to improve the quality
and quantity of life through the development and distribution of
medicines. And yet systems originally created to do good have often
been subverted in ways contrary to the motivations of their
creators. Only by understanding this disconnect can we better
tackle the underlying problems of the industry head on, preventing
foreseeable, and thus avoidable, medical calamities to come.
If you have a child in school, you may have heard stories of
long-dormant diseases suddenly reappearing-cases of measles, mumps,
rubella, and whooping cough cropping up everywhere from elementary
schools to Ivy League universities because a select group of
parents refuse to vaccinate their children. Between Hope and Fear
tells the remarkable story of vaccine-preventable infectious
diseases and their social and political implications. While
detailing the history of vaccine invention, Kinch reveals the
ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable
diseases are not permanent-and could easily be undone. In the
tradition of John Barry's The Great Influenza and Siddhartha
Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies, Between Hope and Fear
relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology and
disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues
known to man.
The introduction of new medicines has dramatically improved the
quantity and quality of individual and public health while
contributing trillions of dollars to the global economy. In spite
of these past successes--and indeed because of them--our ability to
deliver new medicines may be quickly coming to an end. Moving from
the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, A
Prescription for Change reveals how changing business strategies
combined with scientific hubris have altered the way new medicines
are discovered, with dire implications for both health and the
economy. To explain how we have arrived at this pivotal moment,
Michael Kinch recounts the history of pharmaceutical and
biotechnological advances in the twentieth century. Kinch relates
stories of the individuals and organizations that built the modern
infrastructure that supports the development of innovative new
medicines. He shows that an accelerating cycle of acquisition and
downsizing is cannibalizing that infrastructure Kinch demonstrates
the dismantling of the pharmaceutical and biotechnological research
and development enterprises could also provide opportunities to
innovate new models that sustain and expand the introduction of
newer and better breakthrough medicines in the years to come.
For the first time since a 5th century Greek physician gave the
name "cancer" (karkinos, in Greek) to a deadly disease first
described in Egyptian Papyri, the medical world is near a
breakthrough that could allow even the most conservative doctors
and pragmatic patients to use the other "c word" - cure - in the
same sentence as cancer. A remarkable series of events has brought
us to this point, thanks in large part to a new ability to more
efficiently harness the extraordinary power of the human immune.
The End of the Beginning is a remarkable history of cancer
treatment and the evolution of our understanding of its dynamic
interplay with the immune system. Through Michael Kinch's personal
experience as a cancer researcher at Washington University and the
head of the oncology programme at a leading biotechnology company,
we witness the incredible accumulation of breakthrough science and
its rapid translation into life-saving technologies that have begun
to dramatically increase the quality and quantity of life for
cancer patients. Expanding upon Kinch's own remarkable projects to
encompass the vaccines being deployed to eliminate cervical cancer,
the development of cancer-specific "smart bombs" in the form of
monoclonal antibodies, cellular therapies and checkpoint
inhibitors-The End of the Beginning reveals the incredible
transformation of cancer treatment happening today. Kinch details
the remarkable history of people, science, technology and disease
and presents thrilling next-generation technologies that hold the
promise to eliminate cancer for some, and perhaps ultimately, for
all.
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