As much as my compassionate side is siding with hospitals and patients, the company should be allowed to charge any price it considers reasonable for its product. Also I didn't like the inconspicuous ad hominem attacks on the supply-side players. The side-effect is that it leads the reader away from a subtle observation that the fair market controls to prevent these policies are simply missing and regulators have done little if nothing to prevent it. For instance, what does it mean 'controlled' distribution? Why is it difficult for the FDA to maintain reference formulas and manufacturing blueprints for all approved drugs past their patent-expiration date?
Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
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Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#62Drug creation needs to be nationalized, 100% tax funded all the way from researcher to trials to manufacture, and the drugs sold at cost thereafter. And the pharmaceuticals industry needs to just go away.
So, I have a great but perhaps hare brained new idea for a drug/treatment. I'm willing to throw my tens of millions (heh) at it.
Instead I have to go ask permission from the government, fight for funds, wait for approval, build massive infrastructure just to prove to the government I'm not wasting their money, and so on?
I've worked on government contracts - defense - most of my career. It is not a model of innovation, low costs, fast delivery, friction-less pivots, and the like. It's a story of incumbents, outdated regulations (waterfall for the win!), inability to get money for great ideas, buckets of money thrown at bad ideas, cronyism, lobbying, you get the idea.
It's trivial, and lazy, to talk about "big pharma" - to paint them as evil. Yes, there is plenty of less than stellar activity, and I had a gf that was in the business. But she also worked for a small start up that would probably be impossible under your model. That world is full of idealistic people that want to do good in the world. And yes, there is also unsavory business practices. But so much good has come from people with a dream. Bethesda is the pharma equivalent of SF in tech. Lots of money flowing, lots of great ideas, lots of moon shots, lots of quick failures, lots of success. It ain't ideal (great ideas, no funding, for example), but I'd suggest your idea needs substantial sketching out to explain how it would successfully replace this sort of activity.
edit: my first job was working for a small company that contracted for NIH. In my short time there I heard so many stories of research being started, then something becomes the hot topic of the day, funding is withdrawn to throw it at this new topic, and the old project is left to die. Not that the new topic was a bad thing to pursue, but if you keep switching focus before getting results you are wasting tons of money. The NIH is regularly criticized for taking only 1 approach to a problem - investigate drug X or treatment Y. It's unbelievably hard to convince Congress that you should spend a ton of money on a research program, but then go and run 10 other programs that assume that that research program will not pan out. No, that's stupid. It's incredibly believable. I recall pulling all nighters, being called on the phone by congressmen or their aides, trying to pull data together for a presentation on the hill to get or continue funding. Ultimately politicians were making research and health decisions. Madness. Everyone I worked with had their hearts in the right place (beware the easy, lazy assumptions!). Individual politicians that I've run across are intelligent and trying to do the right thing as they understand it, and often that understanding is very sophisticated. But the system doesn't have a heart, whether that system is capitalism, start ups, or government.
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#63Thread on reddit says it is 2 cents per pill in India and entire treatment costs $1
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#64The surprise voiced in this article is suprising. Now that the NY Times has told me about it, this idea of buying the one company that makes a particular generic drug and then raising the price ridiculously high makes a lot of sense. I wonder if they thought they'd lower the price as sales dropped and were themselves surprised when this didn't happen. I gotta agree with jug5: "Breaking News: America doesn't understan…
So you're saying that "jack up the prices to wring more money out of dying people that don't have any other choice" is a perfectly valid, 100% ethical business decision that every single person on the face of the planet should be able to make without any hesitation?
Seems like a specious argument.
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#65When I see "treating a life-threatening disease" and $750 a pill, formerly $14, I think people need long prison sentences to solve that. If we can put food processors who knowingly ship tainted food in prison in this country for endangering or even killing people, we can certainly imprison people for endangering lives by preventing the reception of medication.
It's disheartening, but I think the logic in your first example is that the manufacturer did not give the consumer a choice; in the second, the consumer can choose not to pay, and die instead. It's a horrid way to think about it, and it's a horrid ethical system that gets developed when it all comes down to money.
Wouldn't that presume that the cause of the person's death came as a result of something that the person in question was responsible for rather than a disease or other invasive medical condition? I could foresee your argument remaining viable in the case of someone refusing to drink tap water, dying and subsequently attempting to sue the state for maladministration perhaps but if the cause of their death was not directly correlated to their own actions (rather than the actions of another party that had ramifications) then I don't think they would be liable.
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#66The surprise voiced in this article is suprising. Now that the NY Times has told me about it, this idea of buying the one company that makes a particular generic drug and then raising the price ridiculously high makes a lot of sense. I wonder if they thought they'd lower the price as sales dropped and were themselves surprised when this didn't happen. I gotta agree with jug5: "Breaking News: America doesn't understan…
It's not that America doesn't understand, it's that when you actually take a step back and look at it, the idea of it is so deplorable it's a harsh reflection of our society's values that it's legal at all. I'm thinking about ways to elaborate and explain why it's so awful, but I'm imagining it's obvious to you. I'd imagine this story is making its rounds through all the major news outlets because it evokes soul-sear…
I'm not so sure. There is the doctor that wonders "What is it that they are doing differently that has led to this dramatic increase?" And the answer, clearly, is nothing at all. They are simply raising the price.
I agree the idea is deplorable, but it seems so obvious in retrospect. That the person who has made this idea a reality is a former hedge fund manager is just the icing on the cake.
I'm not sure what the best solution to this situation might be, but I think it's important to recognize that this is _also_ what happens when the only goal is "make more money." In that regard, it should not be a surprising development.
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#67I used to work for a generics manufacturer, and indeed this was their MO. Seek out old drugs that sill have a very viable market but are under the radar of the big guys, undersell until they're the only supplier left, then jack up the price when patients have no choice. It's despicable and seems inevitable with the current regulation model.
But what is preventing a different generics manufacturer to enter the market at that point? How long can an exploit like that go on?
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want my goverment helping people avoid health issues, rather than subsidising costs that could have been prevented. I've yet to see any one industry that has been nationalised and is performing better (in every sense) than the private sector.
Except for socialized health care? http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc... And roads, electricity, emergency services, internet service... > performing better (in every sense) Oh, I see, you didn't really want a fair comparison. No matter how far you separate the means of two gaussians their tails will always overlap, and therefore you are tautologically correct. I'll try to remember that next…
I don't think you understood my comment.
"Socialised healthcare" is a system where a public institution puts capital to take care of a patient by using private-made products and services. i.e. the needles, IT systems, ambulances, drugs, etc, the public system is a platform, but not an industry.
Let the market be free, private companies are better at solving real problems. If the price of a drug is expensive (i) a public health system will take care of it, and (ii) new players will want a slice of that expensive drug by making one better and cheaper. This is my point. Governments are not good at making realiable and quality products and services.
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#69One issue is that at some point "any profit" ceased to be considered a good outcome, and companies are now expected to do better and better when this makes very little sense.
I imagine a simple solution would be a "reasonable profit limit" law.
In other words, if there is evidence that your costs to manufacture are $X, your sale price (especially in a monopoly scenario) ought to be strictly limited to some "reasonable" amount over $X, period. Any desire for more profit must then come from additional products or by taking additional risks that incur new expenses.
In a situation like this where there is evidence that "yesterday" your costs were $X, it can then be clearly said that your costs most certainly did not increase overnight by over 50x so it shall be illegal to charge over 50x more.
Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
#70This kind of behaviour will slowly push patient associations and labs to seek P2P solutions. A platform that connects patients, scientists and independent labs in countries like Japan or Switzerland would cut all the middle-men (pharma, FDA, etc) and would prevent these abuses.