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EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

nytimes.com

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Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#51

Post by rayiner »

andrewla wrote: post #26
jackmott wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not made at all clear if the government is truly granting that monopoly (and if they are, did Mylan bribe the government for that privilege somehow?) or if the competing products were truly not deemed safe or effective enough. Anyone have expert knowledge in that area? The rest of the Forbes Articles seems like the usual delusional libertarian nonsense were they point out well known and obvious downsides of reg…

A serious question -- what do you mean when you say that Bell Labs was a government mandated monopoly? As far as I was aware, it was a privately funded privately owned research laboratory. I'm genuinely curious, not disagreeing, though I am a little dubious. The transistor, at least, was definitely patented, and just a cursory search [1] yields tons of patents involving transistors, so I don't think there was a restr…

In Bell Labs's heyday, AT&T was a government-sanctioned monopoly. See Part I of Wu's "The Master Switch." The same is true for Xerox PARC. At the time, Xerox was protected from competition by Xerox's printer/copier patents.

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#52

Post by rayiner »

tuna-piano wrote: post #10
mtgx wrote: post #2

Relevant post: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/09/14/government-h... It's Forbes, but the argument is backed by the recent Harvard study: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2545691

They look at the symptom, and might fix one case of high prices with public pressure, legal threats, etc - but if the system is broken, then what good is that? The question is not "why is this company so evil and greedy?" It's "why dont McDonald's hamburgers also cost $600?", and how do we make the market for drugs as competitive as for burgers?

Because it doesn't cost a billion dollars to set up a burger stand?

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#53

Post by mhurron »

whatshisface wrote: post #49
gizmodo59 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I do not understand is, the explanation given is that Obamacare fixes the donut hole where people who are not enrolled in company sponsored/medicare could get insurance. This has just let the drug companies to raise the price without any backslash because the end user is "not" paying the price. However, the rising premiums and plans with high deductibles meant that the drugs are still not affordable…

If only insurance companies had some sort of pressure to reduce costs and prices. Some sort of... market.. pressure...

Because that's happened before? Or are you suggesting that the US system isn't laissez-faire enough?

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#54

Post by codegeek »

whatshisface wrote: post #49
gizmodo59 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I do not understand is, the explanation given is that Obamacare fixes the donut hole where people who are not enrolled in company sponsored/medicare could get insurance. This has just let the drug companies to raise the price without any backslash because the end user is "not" paying the price. However, the rising premiums and plans with high deductibles meant that the drugs are still not affordable…

If only insurance companies had some sort of pressure to reduce costs and prices. Some sort of... market.. pressure...

They never have any reason to do that. Too much power. We need to get a system in place that gets rid of too much power away from the insurance companies, plain and simple. With the amount of money and lobbying they do, probably not likely in the near future unless the Congress grows some balls and do something real about healthcare and not just the usual talking points.

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#55

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #42
anexprogrammer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one is making a generic, or more to the point doctors are prescribing "EpiPen" rather than "epinephrine autoinjector" being out of patent won't help. In the UK doctors had to switch to prescribing generics I think as far back as the 80s. Brands are now only prescribed, with a few exceptions, when it's something new enough to not have a generic yet. Before that lots of things were often prescribed by brand witho…

My experience in the US is that doctors prescribe drugs with generic alternatives anytime they can. I'm not sure if I've ever even taken a branded prescription pill.

[deleted]

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#56

Post by gizmodo59 »

codegeek wrote: post #50
bradleyjg wrote: post #19

This whole drug company argument -- that the only thing that really matters is what end users pay as a co-pay or co-insurance and that no one should care what insurance companies (including governments) pay -- is so breathtakingly bad I can only imagine it is in bad faith. Where do they expect us to believe the institutional payments are coming from, out of thin air?

This. Exactly This. I am sick of hearing "oh you just pay $20 co-pay". No we don't. The real cost is much more and these pharmas and insurance companies know it. I know because I paid it for a family of 4. It costs $1500/Month for a decent plan that does not have high "out of pocket" costs (Read capped at $5000). So you pay $1500 per month and in worst case scenario, you can still pay $5000 out of pocket for a year I…

Adding to this, if you have insurance most of the hospitals will jack up the prices. One of my friend did not have the insurance card, so the hospital billed X$ and told him that if he later gives the insurance id they will charge them. He later called the hospital and gave the insurance details and he is charged (X+Y)$. Being the first time he got sick this year, he had to pay his entire deductible meaning he paid more because he HAD insurance.

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#57

Post by thr0waway1239 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #19

This whole drug company argument -- that the only thing that really matters is what end users pay as a co-pay or co-insurance and that no one should care what insurance companies (including governments) pay -- is so breathtakingly bad I can only imagine it is in bad faith. Where do they expect us to believe the institutional payments are coming from, out of thin air?

Agreed. Any little price accountability will be lost when they convince that the federal government will need to pay for it.[1]

I have to unfortunately be very vague because I don't remember the actual reference, but I remember a similar problem where the lobbyists didn't get what they wanted , and discreetly added it into some kind of unrelated bill in the midst of some fine print.[2] An excellent use for using something like natural language processing is to find outlier items which simply do not belong in a law which is being passed.

[1] I am also told that from the perspective of the R&D labs which spend a ton of money up front to produce the drug that this is the only way to recoup costs. And the costs for the R&D labs are usually blamed on excess regulation, so that is apparently a sort of justification for these subsidy requests (which still doesn't make sense).

Edit: [2] I bring this up because the article mentions the following and I think the euphemism has at least one possible explanation:

"But a review of Mylan’s lobbying history makes clear that the company has an exceptional track record at influencing government policies, both in Washington and in state capitals. Heather Bresch, Mylan’s chief executive, called the effort “our unconventional approach to growing this franchise” in remarks to Wall Street analysts last year."

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#58

Post by codegeek »

lettergram wrote: post #5

Having multiple deadly allergies and needing to purchase EpiPens regularly, their price doesn't seem outrageous to me. I pay about $10 a pen, insurance pays about $100 per (even after the price increase). That being said, people rarely use this drug. $100 to save your life once a year or so kind of seems like a fair trade. This seems more like the media is outraged as opposed to the country. All my friends don't even…

"I pay about $10 a pen"

Now let's say you got fired tomorrow when you go to work. Aah, this changes EVERYTHING, doesn't it.

The point is not what you actually pay for a Pen. The point is that SOMEONE is paying for it which is not reasonable. Your employer is paying most of the premium so you may not realize. Lose your job and try buying insurance out of pocket. You will know what it really costs. Oh and don't forget to learn all about the various cryptographic terms such as deductible, co-insurance, co-payment, in-network, out of network, PCP referral required...

Re: EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

#60

Post by criddell »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #57
bradleyjg wrote: post #19

This whole drug company argument -- that the only thing that really matters is what end users pay as a co-pay or co-insurance and that no one should care what insurance companies (including governments) pay -- is so breathtakingly bad I can only imagine it is in bad faith. Where do they expect us to believe the institutional payments are coming from, out of thin air?

Agreed. Any little price accountability will be lost when they convince that the federal government will need to pay for it.[1] I have to unfortunately be very vague because I don't remember the actual reference, but I remember a similar problem where the lobbyists didn't get what they wanted , and discreetly added it into some kind of unrelated bill in the midst of some fine print.[2] An excellent use for using some…

Maybe they should fold the R&D department into the marketing department. That's where all the drug company money is spent.
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