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Prescripted

How should pharmaceutical companies decide which drugs to develop?

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Prescripted

How should pharmaceutical companies decide which drugs to develop?

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Prescripted - Student Handout.pdf
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Prescripted - Teacher Guide.pdf
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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 A.CED.2 Create equations in two or more variables to represent relationships between quantities; graph equations on coordinate axes with labels and scales. F.BF.1 Write a function that describes a relationship between two quantities. (a) Determine an explicit expression, a recursive process, or steps for calculation from a context. (b) Combine standard function types using arithmetic operations. For example, build a function that models the temperature of a cooling body by adding a constant function to a decaying exponential, and relate these functions to the model. (c) (+) Compose functions. For example, if T(y) is the temperature in the atmosphere as a function of height, and h(t) is the height of a weather balloon as a function of time, then T(h(t)) is the temperature at the location of the weather balloon as a function of time. F.BF.4 Find inverse functions. (a) Solve an equation of the form f(x) = c for a simple function f that has an inverse and write an expression for the inverse. For example, f(x) =2 x<sup>3</sup> or f(x) = (x + 1)/(x &mdash; 1) for x = &dash;1. (b) (+) Verify by composition that one function is the inverse of another. (c) (+) Read values of an inverse function from a graph or a table, given that the function has an inverse. (d) (+) Produce an invertible function from a non-invertible function by restricting the domain. F.LE.1 Distinguish between situations that can be modeled with linear functions and with exponential functions. (a) Prove that linear functions grow by equal differences over equal intervals, and that exponential functions grow by equal factors over equal intervals. (b) Recognize situations in which one quantity changes at a constant rate per unit interval relative to another. (c) Recognize situations in which a quantity grows or decays by a constant percent rate per unit interval relative to another. F.LE.2 Construct linear and exponential functions, including arithmetic and geometric sequences, given a graph, a description of a relationship, or two input-output pairs (include reading these from a table). F.LE.5 Interpret the parameters in a linear or exponential function in terms of a context.
Mathematical Practices MP.1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. MP.2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively. MP.3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. MP.4 Model with mathematics. MP.5 Use appropriate tools strategically. MP.7 Look for and make use of structure. MP.8 Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

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