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Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

nytimes.com

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Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#231

Post by aianus »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #230
aianus wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, you could remove the stupid regulations around generics. I trust Bayer is capable of copying some crappy 60-year-old drug without the FDA taking 6 months to approve it.

Because Bayer has never had manufacturing issues[1]? And who decides what companies are trustworthy enough to manufacture drugs? Yes, Bayer is capable, but like many companies, they also have people in their facilities that try to cut corners to make themselves look good. Passing the FDA review is fairly straightforward. [1] http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/u...

> And who decides what companies are trustworthy enough to manufacture drugs?

You could consider them innocent until proven guilty if they have enough capitalization and/or insurance to settle any lawsuits if they screw up.

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#232

Post by cowsandmilk »

cmiles74 wrote: post #77
DanBC wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising because most people are not pathological arseholes and would find this kind of shenanigans repugnant. This company and this example of abusive trading will single-handedly drive further regulation of the pharmaceutical industry.

I would agree with you in terms of the general population. In this case, however, we're talking about a "former hedge fund manager".

I suppose you also approve of his embezzling funds from the publicly traded company he ran to pay off his former hedge fund clients.

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#233

Post by rayiner »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #192
bedhead wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree that many people are looking at this business plan with envy. CEO's of "real" pharma companies know this business model is possible, but no one bothers with it. I think this is partly out of ethical standards (yes, CEO's, even pharma CEO's, can possess this) and partly out of knowing the inevitable backlash makes it not worth it for the business and their personal reputation. Again, while KV isn't a…

>I think this is partly out of ethical standards (yes, CEO's, even pharma CEO's, can possess this) Not buying it. I'll buy the fallout argument, as that will hurt them monetarily, but I'm not guying them have any moral or ethical concerns with those being hurt by high drug prices.

What's more ethically questionable: spending billions in capital developing drugs to save lives, and trying to make money off that, or spending billions of capital on endeavors like entertainment services that don't save lives at all?

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#235

Post by darkmighty »

fspeech wrote: post #223
bedhead wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the loophole though, the quantities are so small that realistically, no pharmaceutical company has the incentive to make their version of the drug, even at $750 per dose. There are still costs to making a drug that's off-patent, and sometimes the number of patients being treated is only in the double digits. Additionally, a competing drug released at say, $500 per dose would still be considered predatory anywa…

Maybe the big drug retailers (CVS/Walgreen/Walmart) could be interested in either owning or partnering with generic makers, as they can derive secondary benefits such as reputation/traffic even if a particular drug is temporarily unprofitable. They could also attempt "premium" generics like what Costco did with the Kirkland brand. You need a player that can benefit in other ways to prevent someone from gaining a mono…

Not familiar with the industry, but I don't think the problem can be solved this way (at least in the short term). Simply by the distribution of drugs/prices, there seems to be a very large number of low cost drugs susceptible to this tactic. There's ample space for them to pick a drug now and then and put abusive prices all of a sudden, while lowering the price as soon as competition threatens to move in. Additionally, the costs of reverse engineering a drug are high enough to make this kind of competition very hard. I see no other way than some regulation to at least force some hysteresis or stability on the prices.

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#236

Post by Lawtonfogle »

rayiner wrote: post #233
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think this is partly out of ethical standards (yes, CEO's, even pharma CEO's, can possess this) Not buying it. I'll buy the fallout argument, as that will hurt them monetarily, but I'm not guying them have any moral or ethical concerns with those being hurt by high drug prices.

What's more ethically questionable: spending billions in capital developing drugs to save lives, and trying to make money off that, or spending billions of capital on endeavors like entertainment services that don't save lives at all?

>spending billions in capital developing drugs to save lives

Loaded question. This assumes they are doing it to save lives instead of doing it to make money.

And doing it to make money, given the patent system, is the less ethical option when others would do it to save lives but are now forbidden to do such.

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#237

Post by hueving »

huxley wrote: post #126
mason240 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really shocking to such an anti-technological development comment on site about technological development. If the federal government had locked down all IT development in the 1980s as you proposing they do for pharmaceuticals, we wouldn't have this forum to comment on, much less the industry it is built around.

It's anti-corporate not anti-technological, not quite the same thing. After all the open and free Internet is the creation of government departments and government-funded universities. I don't believe that anything as extreme as the parent suggests is necessary but I do believe that we should have enforceable transparency in the pharmaceuticals industry R&D costs and/or decoupling the drug trials system so that the t…

>It's anti-corporate not anti-technological, not quite the same thing. After all the open and free Internet is the creation of government departments and government-funded universities.

The only thing that made it useful though was commercialization.

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#238

Post by johansch »

bedhead wrote: post #55

I am a fund manager and I have followed Martin Shkreli since his prior company, Retrophin, went public about two years ago. Simply put, Martin is a sociopathic criminal with a well-established, and consistent track record of deceit, recklessness, failure, and just plain old stupidity. But he is also hyper-aggressive. He is currently living in Switzerland, and it's my understanding that he fled the country in order to…

Isn't this one of those very few cases were nationalisation of a company is called for?

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#239

Post by rdtsc »

aianus wrote: post #211
skj wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because then you don't have an audit trail to use in your study documentation.

I meant the manufacturer doesn't have to know (so they can't take revenge on the doctor/hospital). You can still have a hush-hush audit trail. Why is the original drug required anyways? Can't you prove it's the same without it? The details are all there in the public patent.

Just a guess, I imagine they'd have to go through the whole new drug approval cycle as opposed to the show its bioactivity similar to existing one.

Re: Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight

#240

Post by kragen »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #217
FireBeyond wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure he'd be happy to let that go unprotested ... "Skrelicame to attention after his attempts to have the FDA not approve drugs being produced by companies whose stocks he was shorting". Who needs morality in the free market, right?

That is a very biased view of the situation. Pharma companies try to put the best face on data to get a drug approved. Analysts try to approach the data in an impartial way. If an analyst looks at the data and sees issues, it makes sense both ethically and financially to push for the drug not to be approved. Ethically, if the drug doesn't work as advertised, it is better that it is not sold as a cure. Informing the F…

Yes, it makes sense ethically to push the FDA not to approve a drug you think won't work. It also makes sense financially to bet that the FDA won't approve a drug that you think won't work. But it doesn't make sense ethically to do both, both directly because it creates a conflict of interest, and indirectly because that very conflict of interest undermines both the objectivity and the credibility of your recommendation not to approve the drug.
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