The Future, page-60

Hi Mozzarc,

I'm absolutely not disagreeing that the PAR/PPS story is a compelling one, and I have no doubt at all as to the drug's efficacy, having got hold of some for my wife (it worked a treat).

The point that I'm making is that we should be a good deal more realistic when doing the numbers on potential revenue flow, and, imo, disregard some of the hype coming out of various quarters.

Consider: approximately 20% of the population has doctor diagnosed arthritis of one kind or another (say 5m Australians). The cost of treating those individuals with even a single course of PPS (and you actually need continuing treatment, as this isn't a one-off), at $2k a pop would be $10 billion dollars!! This is about 50% more than the entire annual cost of operating the current PBS!!

So, quite obviously, I would have thought, there is absolutely zero chance that the Australian government would be willing to pay anything remotely like that sort of money, and neither would any other government anywhere in the world.

Anyway, charging $2k per course of treatment with a drug that costs about 1% of that amount (say $20) to manufacture, is quite obviously a non-starter.

Love the company, and absolutely agree about the potential size of the prize, but let's all keep a sense of perspective here.