Humira is a monoclonal antibody (a biologic drug), not a small molecule. Biologics require cell culture systems and a completely different manufacturing process than small molecules, and are very complex drugs. The "generics" (called biosimilars) aren't significantly cheaper because they're simply very expensive to manufacture at scale. Humira or its "generics/biosimilars" will never be cheap. It's physically impossible with today's bio processing technology.
Trikafta is a mix of three small molecules, which are manufactured in large chemical batches and are the more traditional class of drugs. Many even have total synthesis pathways known which means you can basically make them by the train car scale for cheap.
When the patent on Trikafta runs out, it'll be very cheap.
I'll note that vanishingly few patients ever pay the full list price in the US--if you have insurance, the copay is small.
Your insurance pays (as they should, that's why you pay them premiums!). The company even pays the co-pay in most cases so the actual cost to patients in many cases is $0.
If you truly need it and don't have insurance, the company provides it for basically free with a patient assistance program, it's there on their website.
Kudos to the scientists who invented this, I don't feel bad for the insurance companies really, they charge their premiums and it's their responsibility to the policyholders to pay the applicable fees for care.
Humira's biosimilars are roughly 20% of the cost of name-brand Humira ($600/mo). It can even be down to 10% of the original cost, or lower, in some shops. You can buy a month's supply for ~75 from an Indian pharam supplier online, for example. The slight kicker is that the biosimilars are not 100% the same (fat) molecule as the original adalimumab.
Insurance companies are starting to say they wont cover name-brand Humira without a strong doctor's note.
Still, the price of the drug went down from being completely unaffordable without insurance to the price of an car payment. It's still expensive, but much better than before. You're not as tied to your company providing good insurance, for example.
I don't feel bad for the insurance companies either, but it is the case that they get their money from the people they cover, expensive treatments will drive up overall premiums.
Amazing tech, unfortunately you (the biohacker you, not necessarily the categorical you) probably can't afford the 99.99999% of what else is needed to make it do anything awesome.
To do something/anything interesting on your own with this sequencer (let's not include really interesting stuff like serious cancer research because that adds about 5+ orders of magnitude to the total price) with it you need a full-on molecular biology lab (do you have a molecular biology workflow? Reagents? A lab? Powerful informatics? Trained staff? Molecular biologists and bioinformaticians? They'll want a good benefits plan? How's your comp and insurance? What about your FDA regulatory documents and their associated advisor? How about your lawyers? Clinical sites? IRB approvals? Travel budgets?).
Oh, you're at a university? That's cute but the tech transfer office owns your soul, study up now unless you've got a real keen eye for patent licensing terms. You got a good lawyer friend? Now's the time to mine them for free advice over beers.
Then let's talk about your investors (you'll need them unless you're Tony Stark or Elon-class) who will want to know why you're even qualified before they hand over a penny--unless they're fools, which you want avoid, life is hard enough without adversarial fools as investors. Oh, and fools or not, they're also much better than you at business and finance, so be prepared for the egregious terms coupled with a real possibility of horrific incoming frivolous lawsuits if you don't play along with their terms ("thank you professor we'll take it from here"). You better also budget for the banks and their advisors, who you also surely won't get to pick.
So no, it's not $1k for you to sequence a genome and do much interesting. We have a long ways to go. Good luck!
Do you see a way to simplify this? Say you want to engineer useful bacteria or something, and avoid dealing with the large human genome and regulation?
Check out Etymotic Research--they make all kinds of high-end auditory systems, including earplugs[1]. I've been very happy with their Ety-Plugs and also have a set of their ER20XS's [1].
They're relatively inexpensive ($16-25 USD) and work like a charm. They're amazing at reducing the volume very evenly across the frequency range without distorting the sound quality or balance, useful for everyone not just professional performers. You can hold a normal conversation in a really loud environment without screaming, they're great.
Humira is a monoclonal antibody (a biologic drug), not a small molecule. Biologics require cell culture systems and a completely different manufacturing process than small molecules, and are very complex drugs. The "generics" (called biosimilars) aren't significantly cheaper because they're simply very expensive to manufacture at scale. Humira or its "generics/biosimilars" will never be cheap. It's physically impossible with today's bio processing technology.
Trikafta is a mix of three small molecules, which are manufactured in large chemical batches and are the more traditional class of drugs. Many even have total synthesis pathways known which means you can basically make them by the train car scale for cheap.
When the patent on Trikafta runs out, it'll be very cheap.
I'll note that vanishingly few patients ever pay the full list price in the US--if you have insurance, the copay is small.
Your insurance pays (as they should, that's why you pay them premiums!). The company even pays the co-pay in most cases so the actual cost to patients in many cases is $0.
If you truly need it and don't have insurance, the company provides it for basically free with a patient assistance program, it's there on their website.
Kudos to the scientists who invented this, I don't feel bad for the insurance companies really, they charge their premiums and it's their responsibility to the policyholders to pay the applicable fees for care.
*edit: typo