Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by logicallee » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #343

logicallee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know who you are, but my reaction is that a comment like this shouldn't be stated in the exact tone you've chosen/reacted with. (I looked through your past few comments, and a lot of them are the same way - "There is no shortage of scammy software companies like AVG, but what always cracked me up about AVG was their logo.") I like the fact that HN is a particularly civil place - it's in the guidelines. Now gr…

I didn't downvote but I do disagree with you. It's a blunt opinion, but one supported by reference to the article and to the cited litigation, from someone with meaningful perspective as a professional investor - in the same way I'd be OK with a professional crypto researcher saying 'Product X is blatantly insecure, and Software Company Y is dishonest when it claims otherwise,' or any number of other contexts. I'm wi…

I have absolutely no objection to the opinion and said about three times that I was glad to have read it. The exact same opinion can be worded in different ways. It's not about being diplomatic, it's about being informative versus inflammatory.

If you try to read it literally what does "one of the most unique scumbags I've ever come across" mean exactly? It's not possible to translate this into an informative statement - it contains too little information, and "one of the most unique" is not even an oxymoron, it just has no informative content. (Some people consider "most unique" to be a grammatical error.)

So if it's a reflection of the author's emotions, it should be stated in those terms. But if the author takes a moment, he (or she) can make it far more informative. This isn't reddit.

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

#352

Post by nickff » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:26 PM UTC

zem wrote: post #337

nickff wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have re-read your comment a dozen times, trying to grasp what you mean, and come up short each time. Do you mean to say that whenever a business makes a decision that you disagree with, you (or someone else) should feel morally entitled to go a kill the individuals working there? Or do you mean that whenever a business makes a decision that you disagree with, the state is entitled to focibly take the company? I per…

would you complain about the state simply setting up a plant to manufacture and distribute a generic version of the drug, thereby driving the predatory company out of business? that seems like it would be an ideal solution that doesn't involve forcibly taking anything away from anyone.

I would have no moral objections to an alternative producer being set up (by the government or anyone else), so long as nobody is forced to buy from either one.

There may be some practical issues (such as the regulator being a member of the same organization as the regulated producer), or issues with the scope (and scope creep) of the project, but those are only related issues.

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

#353

Post by ascendantlogic » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:32 PM UTC

frogpelt wrote: post #279

ben_bai wrote: post #121

Well, in german there is one word describing how to calculate something like this: "Leidensdruckanalyse". It's a dark word, because it basically means: Why give people drugs for $13.50 if the disease is horrible enough that they will, in the long run, accept $750 to ease the pain or to not die. We have laws preventing something like this, but then the industry just has to invent a "new" drug (basically the old one wi…

You may view it as sad. But I think two things are happening: 1. The price of the drug was artificially deflated. 2. The somewhat-free market is deciding how to handle the correction. If the market for this drug was interfered with and the price was not allowed to go up, who's to say the manufacturer couldn't just discontinue the product? Would that help?

I don't want "free market economics" applied to the pain and suffering of someone I love, especially if they're not independently wealthy. At what point does the happiness and wellbeing of people you care for outweigh someone ramping up their revenue stream in the name of capitalism?

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

#354

Post by crusso » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:32 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #209

danmaz74 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just allow importing drugs from other markets that have good enough quality standards - like the EU or Canada I guess. Problem solved.

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?

I often see the "free market" referenced in contexts like this where it's the interactions of a corrupted government entity that is at the root of the trouble - yet the free market is the entity in the crosshairs.

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

#355

Post by Retra » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:42 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #148

JulianMorrison wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't comparable. Computers are tools. Drugs are health. They are a public good and a natural human right. Holding people's health hostage is unacceptable whether you do it with a knife in an alley, or a capitalist health system. Mixing them up like the USA system does is a category error.

"Drugs are health." Only a sick (person/group/society/culture) would link them like this. Drugs are, in fact, dis-ease. They are the opposite of health. Real food, real exercise, real work and real sleep. That's health. Drugs are at best dis-ease and at worst tools of predation and exploitation.

Why don't you come back and sing that tune when you're old.

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

#356

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:42 PM UTC

bertil wrote: post #338

Serious question, for the occasional lawyer: how likely is it that, based on this behaviour, that Shkreli be accused of murder, with a US judge finding grounds to that? If that is the case, Switzerland would have to extradite him — and I doubt any accusation of economic misbehaviour would have a similar impact.

I'm not a lawyer, but I know enough to tell you that the probability is zero. You can't be convicted of murder by omission, and you can't even be convicted of criminal negligence unless you have a clear duty to act, which is not the case here.

So say we're in the US, and I am walking down the street and discover you in a hole in the ground that is full of water, and you are obviously about to drown. There is a ladder next to the hole, and you ask me to put the ladder in the hole; let's assume that I can do so at absolutely no risk or even significant effort - all I have to do is press a button. If I don't you will surely die.

Well in the US, I don't have to do anything. I can stand there and callously ignore your pleas and watch you die and I won't get in legal trouble for it (although I will probably become a social outcast). Unless you are a member of my family or I am some sort of emergency worker or similar person with a responsibility to render assistance (eg if I invited you into my yard and you then fell into a hole), I have absolutely no legal obligation to help you - I can't be charged criminally, and your anguished relatives won't prevail in a civil lawsuit. There is no law against me being selfish or even sadistic (by passively enjoying your suffering).

Of course the moral thing for me to do is to help you get out of the hole, and most people would say that I should be even willing to risk some danger to myself in order to save your life. But the law is not a moral system, and the current theory at this point in history is that the limitation on my liberty by being obliged to incur risk on your behalf is worse than the fact that you may lose your life. This isn't entirely arbitrary; you read up on tort law you'll encounter a depressing number of cases where incompetent people made a good-faith effort to help and ended up making things substantially worse.

I would also like to point out that I personally prefer the risk of helping out to doing nothing, but have long since given up assuming the same thing about other people :-/

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

#357

Post by tim333 » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:45 PM UTC

trymas wrote: post #79

It's so range inducing it's horrible. The guy is pure evil. Though, my question is, what does it mean "to acquire/own/have the rights to the drug"? If the drug is 62 years old, knowledge about it should be in public domain and why can't some other company start making it?

Apparently the problem is 'The FDA grants market exclusivity to companies that are willing to take “grandfathered” compounds into compliance with their current regulatory framework'. Which is why they are able to force US buyers to pay $700 a tablet for stuff which is available for a few cents in India at the same time. I think the FDA might not really be doing US consumers a favour by preventing them shopping around.

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

#358

Post by pdeuchler » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:45 PM UTC

johansch wrote: post #238

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?

That's like using a nuclear bomb to clear out an ant problem

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

#359

Post by harryh » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:52 PM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #296

Kalium wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might surprise you, but conditions that encourage abuse also encourage people to find ways to avoid having their abuse detected. Yeah, it can be worse than the current deal. Just look at the problems China has with counterfeit food.

This whole thread is about a horrible abuse present in the current system. The potential for abuse in an alternate system does not disqualify it. There is no perfect system and bad actors are everywhere. However, I don't see terrible endemic problems in the UK, Canada or the Eurozone from importing drugs. I'm sure they exist sometimes. But in the entire rest of the G7 drug costs are less and their outcomes no worse t…

The counter argument is that most new drugs are developed in the US (due to the large profit margins here) and that the UK, Canada & the EU are essentially free riding off the US in this area.

Not sure I completely buy this argument, but there it is.

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

#360

Post by marincounty » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 8:56 PM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #85

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…

It seems to me that the overall result would be other companies start manufacturing the generic and sell the drug for maybe 20% less than Martin and over time the price drops back down towards where it once started. In the meantime, this company either goes bankrupt or is sold off. Or the government passes a law capping how much you can raise the price of a generic drug over so many years.

"Or the government passes a law capping how much you can raise the price of a generic drug over so many years."

Congress, controlled by Rebublicans, right now, won't let government get involved. I don't even want a cap. I would just like governmental over site/approval on Pharmacutical accuisition.

I asked my pharmacist why my generic drug(not orphan drug, noting fancy) is going up in price.

I don't know if she's right, but she told me big Pharmacutical companies are buying out generic drug companies, and raising the prices of the generic drug, or shutting the newly bought company--so they can keep supply down?

I don't know if this is going on, but i've heard it, from at least, two sources. I know it sound extreme, and hard to imagine, but these pharmacutical companies are loaded with cash? Plus, they have government protection--can't buy from Canada, etc.

So, in the end, we are going to be at their mercy?

As to just effecting Insurance Companies, my prescription formulary excludes so many drugs, or makes them difficult to buy; I pay out of pocket. These drug prices are coming out of our pockets.

(It's not just this future bottom boy at some federal correction facility, it's most of these Pharmacutical companies, or hedge funds? I can't tell the difference anymore. Oh yea, Biomarin seems just as shady, but because people don't understand what they do, they seem to just get a pass?)