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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

#371

Post by dlss »

robotresearcher wrote: post #329
mason240 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to be rude, but I can't fathom how you can think running a public utility like water treatment and capital intensive research and development are in anyway comparable to each other.

Water works represent an enormous public investment in R&D over hundreds of years. They didn't and don't invent themselves. It's an engineering triumph that they feel so routine.

To return this to drug companies, what you are suggesting is a nationalized manufacturing of drugs, not a nationalized R&D of drugs.

FWIW unlike 90% of this thread, this suggestion doesn't sound insane to me. We could look at the number of people with a disease, and the QALY swing caused by the treatment, and then pay the team which designed the drug for the patent for (expected number of treatments) * (expected gains in QALYs).

This would allow the drugs to be any price the government liked once created, but still convince financially motivated smart people to work in medicine. Bonus points if the solution included ever-rising-prices for long untreated diseases (kind of like an auction).

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

#372

Post by dogma1138 »

This is basically the worst case of patent trolling you can think off. Toxoplasmosis is one of the most common infections out there, it's usually asymptomatic but it's damn freaking scary (brain (and every other cell) eating parasite meh, fucking cats). There needs to be some procedure to revoke data exclusivity/patent protection in cases like this.

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

#375

Post by owen_griffiths »

caseysoftware wrote: post #345
nightpool wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need to reverse-engineer the drug, as its under an expired patent—so all of the processes and techniques used are open and theoretically (if the patent office has done its job right) should be easy for a competitor to reproduce. this is in fact one of the stated goals of the patent system: a limited monopoly in exchange for the advancement of public knowledge.

I was thinking less of the reverse-engineering costs and more of the hard production costs. Equipment, personnel, production time, etc. Those are non-trivial costs even if the complete formula and process is known.

right, so the drug that was getting sales of 600k per year was probably not worth the hassle of maintaining a compliant manufacturing line. does that not suggest a price rise was valid?

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

#378

Post by llamataboot »

crusso wrote: post #354
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?

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.

Where is the government interference here? How is the FDA or whomever enabling this behavior?

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

#379

Post by jjoonathan »

antr wrote: post #120
bkor wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loads of things have been handed over from the government to companies within The Netherlands. Your general statement that governments are not good I highly doubt. Especially for basic services, governments seem to run them cheaper and more reliably.

When you say "cheaper" you mean to partialy subsidised services. I'm refering to tollroads, train networks, healthcare, pensions, etc. What you "pay" is not the real cost, but paid for in good part by the Government's budget.

Did you not click on the link? IMO the site does a pretty good job of making it crystal clear that it's referring to the full cost (all levels of government + business + individual + other).

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

#380

Post by ci5er »

kragen wrote: post #240
cowsandmilk wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 recommendat…

You are arguing ... what, here? That people with some sort of knowledge of a product/company/industry's prospects shouldn't be allowed to buy/sell positions in that company?

If I understand you (and I may not), and we were to come to the conclusion that "there ought to be a law", I have no idea how that would even be structured/written.

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