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How should pharmaceutical companies decide which drugs to develop?

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(Old) Prescripted

How should pharmaceutical companies decide which drugs to develop?

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2023-2024 Versions

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How should pharmaceutical companies decide which drugs to develop? There are plenty of medications for conditions like seasonal allergies and athlete’s foot, but treatments for critical conditions such as Ebola are often non-existent. Even though treatments like these may be more important, they’re also less profitable for drug companies.

In this lesson, students create linear and quadratic functions to explore how much pharmaceutical companies profit from different drugs and consider ways to incentivize companies to prioritize medications that are valuable to society.

REAL WORLD TAKEAWAYS

  • A pharma company’s profit for a drug depends on: (1) how many people need it, (2) how much customers are willing to pay for it, (3) how much it costs to produce the drug in the first place.
  • Developing a new drug can cost billions of dollars without a certain outcome.

MATH OBJECTIVES

  • Given a linear graph, find and interpret the meaning of the y-intercept, x-intercept, slope, and equation
  • Evaluate a linear function
  • Write, graph, and interpret quadratic functions

Appropriate most times as students are developing conceptual understanding.
Algebra 1
Parabolas & Quadratics
Algebra 1
Parabolas & Quadratics
Content Standards
Mathematical Practices

Other Algebra 1 Lessons