Mylan to Settle EpiPen Overpricing Case for $465M • Hacker News Board

Re: Mylan to Settle EpiPen Overpricing Case for $465M

#81

Post by icebraining » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #67

Forlien wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it depend where Mylan's profit comes from? I don't know the numbers, but ideally the fine would more than cover the amount they made from EpiPens. In your example, if you legally earned $900MM and then robbed a bank for $100MM, would you be fine if the fine was $500MM when caught?

The article says Mylan had $1.3 billion in US government EpiPen revenue just from 2011-2015.

Yes, but that's revenue, not profit. Apparently their margin on EpiPens is 40%, which means it was $520M. So the fine represents around 90% of that.

Re: Mylan to Settle EpiPen Overpricing Case for $465M

#82

Post by jsprogrammer » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 10:47 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #81

jsprogrammer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says Mylan had $1.3 billion in US government EpiPen revenue just from 2011-2015.

Yes, but that's revenue, not profit. Apparently their margin on EpiPens is 40%, which means it was $520M. So the fine represents around 90% of that.

So, $55M in profit.

Re: Mylan to Settle EpiPen Overpricing Case for $465M

#83

Post by dmix » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

alkjshdkfjasdf wrote: post #46

dmix wrote: post #37

Another year another major pharmaceutical settlement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical... It's like a game of musical chairs for who gets to pay the government a billion dollars this year. This Epipen case sounds far less bad then most on that list. Especially if we're going to talk about punishment. As most of the other settlements on the list were for mislabeled drugs. People were spendi…

I am sorry for your experience with diagnosis in regards to your health, but your last paragraph or two is completely unrelated to anything other than "diagnosis is hard / my physician wasn't able to help". In other words, it is completely unrelated, and your overcharging on drugs was awful and again, completely unrelated to this core issue.

I was simply relating to the severity of mislabeling. The last comment I made about the price was merely to support the need for greater punishment of mislabeling (added cost is a side effect of mislabeling). Not to draw comparison to my added expenditure and EpiPen over-pricing.

I wasn't over-charged for drugs, I was over-prescribed by the doctor - and this shows the danger of being given drugs you're not supposed to have (both wasted money and loss of treatment time). Which was the point of the last two paragraphs in support of my claim that mislabeling is worse than pharma companies over-charging insurance companies (I believe non-insurance holders were offered lower prices by Mylan?). But I could see how my choice of phrasing might have been misinterpreted.

Re: Mylan to Settle EpiPen Overpricing Case for $465M

#84

Post by dmix » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 3:59 PM UTC

forgetsusername wrote: post #50

dmix wrote: post #37

Another year another major pharmaceutical settlement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical... It's like a game of musical chairs for who gets to pay the government a billion dollars this year. This Epipen case sounds far less bad then most on that list. Especially if we're going to talk about punishment. As most of the other settlements on the list were for mislabeled drugs. People were spendi…

Doctors and their diagnoses aren't infallible. Why assume Doctor A is sinister, as opposed to unaware or, worst case, incompetent?

An incompetent doctor with a script pad is dangerous. Just like an incompetent police officer with a firearm. They should be held to a high level of accountability and I'm not willing to easily dismiss such action as human fallibility as he easily could have deferred his diagnosis to the specialist who was in the same building. It was months before I ended up seeing the specialist who corrected the prescription because I wrongly trusted the original doctors judgement. He made no indication he was just making a guess at what was wrong with me and that I should speak to a specialist as soon as possible.

If they aren't competent enough for their high-stakes job they should be doing something else where their fallibility isn't harming peoples lives. And the inaccurate over-prescribing and was only part of my negative experience with the physician in question.

Re: Mylan to Settle EpiPen Overpricing Case for $465M

#85

Post by dmix » Sun, Oct 09, 2016, 4:11 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #58

mtgx wrote: post #48

And this will solve absolutely nothing. Change the system if you want real change. Allow competitors on the market to diminish Mylan's stranglehold on it.

That's the nature of patents.. what is needed is a compulsory license schedule for prescription medications and devices as well as a dual-source requirement for gov't paid prescriptions.

Can you expand on this or point me towards a longer explanation? I've been curious for a long time now on how this issue could be solved.