I get my information about Follicular Lymphoma from a few different places, but one big source is from Google Alerts. Once a day, I get an email from Google with links to anything that has been published recently about FL. That can be anything from an article in a medical journal to a story in a local newspaper in Australia about a fundraiser for an FL patient. (I've gotten alerts for both in the last week.)
Another type of alert that I get frequently is a financial analysis of FL. These alerts are usually something like an announcement from a company that you can pay for a report that will tell you which stocks or shares to buy in companies that are doing work related to FL. Maybe you can get rich by investing in a pharmaceutical company that has a successful treatment that's about to be approved.
I will admit that I have mixed feelings about all of this, and I think that's true of many cancer patients. On the one hand, I really don't like the idea that someone is making money off my disease. We've all heard stories about drug companies that raise their prices to unreasonable levels. On the other hand, I'm grateful to the company that makes Rituxan, which helped me and thousands of other FL patients.
The reality is, we live in a world where cancer treatments cost money to research, develop, and manufacture. It's going to cost someone money and it's going to make someone money.
I mostly ignore the links like this that I get from Google, but every now and then I take a look. Financial analysis is something very different from medical analysis. CAR-T is an excellent treatment and is very successful for a lot of people. But at almost a half million dollars per treatment, it's out of reach for a ot of patients. And that's true for lots of patients and lots of treatments all over the world.
But this is one that I read, and I thought it was pretty interesting. A financial perspective isn't necessarily a bad thing -- if someone is going to make money, maybe there's something they can tell me that I didn't already know. (Because if everyone already knows it, it's not going to make you as much money.)
The article is called "Refractory Follicular Lymphoma Diagnostics Market Research 2026 - Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast, 2021-2031," from Research and Markets.
As the title says, it focuses on investments in refractory FL -- second or later treatments.
But this article doesn't focus on treatments. Instead, it focuses on investing in companies that deal with diagnostics. Specifically, it looks at companies that deal with Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) monitoring and liquid biopsies.
Both of these things are part of diagnostics -- figuring out if someone has FL, in this case, a return of FL. Both are ways of fairly easily measuring whether a patient has cancer. Instead of the traditional way of performing an incisional biopsy -- surgically removing a lymph node to check for the presence of cancer, or a needle biopsy, which pulls cells out without a surgical procedure. Needle biopsies are less invasive but often inaccurate, since they cover such a small area. Surgical biopsies are more accurate but very invasive. A Liquid Biopsy or MRD analysis uses a blood sample to find cancer DNA. More accurate and less invasive.
The financial logic here makes sense. As newer treatments for refractory and relapsed disease become more effective, with longer PFS, that means patients will (in theory) need fewer treatments. If your financial analysis says to invest in X treatment because most patients will eventually need it, then it's smart to invest in X. But if your analysis says that fewer patients will need X because the W treatment works so well, then it makes sense to hold off on investing in X. Instead, you invest in the diagnostics -- more patient will need to know whether or not their disease has returned, and these new diagnostic tools will become more popular -- and more profitable.
Of course, there is a downside, too. Just like CAR-T is out of reach because some health systems or insurers won't pay for it, the same is true for these diagnostics. As the article says, some folks won't get them because they won't get paid for. The medical analysis is different from the financial analysis.
I think it's all very interesting to me. As much as I value knowing what doctors think, their minds (hopefully) aren't on what's going to make someone money, but rather on what's going to make someone healthy. So maybe the financial analysis can offer us some insight.
I shouldn't have to say it, but I'll say it anyway -- you shouldn't take any of this as financial advice. I'm always reminding you all that you shouldn't take what I say as medical advice -- talk to your doctor instead. Same thing with your money -- don't take what i say as financial or investing advice. I'm not a finance guy. After all, I', too dumb to have adverting on this site. Plus, I take furniture out of my neighbors' trash. I'm not exactly Warren Buffett.
But I do like to learn, and I'll take my education any way I can get it.
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