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Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

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Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#71

Post by drzaiusapelord »

klodolph wrote: post #63
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin Shkreli gouged on off-patent medicine. Pretending patents are the problem is short sighted. >It costs a quarter to manufacture each pill but the manufacturers charge several dollars for that pill. Is Trump writing checks to pay for R&D, salaries, etc? Of course they cost more than are to manufacture, that's the basics of business. Unless we move to a heavily regulated single-payer system then these problems wi…

Martin Shkreli gouged to drive down the company's stock price. The problem with Shkreli had everything to do with market manipulation and almost nothing to do with drugs in particular.

The drug was then unaffordable regardless of intent. You can't separate the two. Again, your solution doesn't stop this.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#72

Post by robotresearcher »

jostmey wrote: post #23
kar1181 wrote: post #12

Having lived in both the UK and US I find the cost of medicines very hard to understand here. For example in the UK I can buy a ventolin inhaler for £10 over the counter (if I went to the Doctor it would be free). But in the US, an inhaler costs me $60 (with insurance). Why is it that much more expensive here?

The US pays an unfair burden to cover the cost of developing new drugs. That said, many drug companies seem more concerned with selling drugs that are barely better than a placebo and have cut back on research efforts.

The US is paying for "ask your doctor about X" ads, which in many places are forbidden. That's just wasted money.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#73

Post by Chestofdraw »

lukasm wrote: post #22
kar1181 wrote: post #12

Having lived in both the UK and US I find the cost of medicines very hard to understand here. For example in the UK I can buy a ventolin inhaler for £10 over the counter (if I went to the Doctor it would be free). But in the US, an inhaler costs me $60 (with insurance). Why is it that much more expensive here?

In UK government has almost a monopoly for buying drugs, so they have a leverage in negotiation and there is a lower overhead with paper work. Americans subsidize drugs for the rest of the world.

> Americans subsidize drugs for the rest of the world.

Complete nonsense. I see this regurgitated again and again with nothing to back it up and it falls apart under the slightest inspection.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#74

Post by SilasX »

FireBeyond wrote: post #37
lukasm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In UK government has almost a monopoly for buying drugs, so they have a leverage in negotiation and there is a lower overhead with paper work. Americans subsidize drugs for the rest of the world.

Yeah. That's not so accurate. Top 10 pharma companies, 5/10 are US (2 UK, 2 Swiss, 1 French). 4 of the top 6 for profit margins (from 43%(!) to 19%) are US (Merck is the only outlier, 9th, at 10%). 4 of the top 5 for Sales and Marketing Spend (both on raw dollars and as a percentage of revenue) are US. 3 of the bottom 5 for R&D spend (as a percentage of revenue) are US. I think I see a little fat that can be trimmed…

I don't know why you think the home country of the drug maker contradicts the claim that Americans are effectively subsidizing drugs. The fact that the company is "Swiss" doesn't change the fact that it's getting disproportionate revenue from ("subsidized by") the US.

>4 of the top 5 for Sales and Marketing Spend (both on raw dollars and as a percentage of revenue) are US.

>3 of the bottom 5 for R&D spend (as a percentage of revenue) are US.

Say that $1 of marketing increases profits (exclusive of that $1) by $1.01. And you can do it 5 billion times before the effects cancel. In that case, it looks like virtually all of your money went to marketing, and yet there's no fat that can be trimmed.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#75

Post by maxerickson »

akiselev wrote: post #70
maxerickson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single doses of many cancer treatments cost $10,000 or more. That's where the spending is concentrated, not in daily maintenance meds that cost a buck or two.

Do you have data to back this up? Cancer treatments cost a lot per dose because they usually have relatively tiny markets (in any given year), are some of the most complex to develop, and treat an acute disease without the potential for long term customers. Also, much of the cost of cancer treatment is the cost of complications, clinical face time, and end-of-life care, not the drugs. If I remember correctly, the ave…

Isn't the modal number of prescriptions 0?

As far as Medicare, they don't pay "whatever", they pay what everyone else pays or less.

I shouldn't have just said cancer drugs. Lots of specialty and small market drugs have enormous prices. Meanwhile, statins cost $0.30 a day: https://www.goodrx.com/lipitor

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#76

Post by akiselev »

cmdrfred wrote: post #64
FireBeyond wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a quarter of their revenue goes on sales and marketing that is pretty subjectively "unnecessary" I don't they can claim with a straight face that it's "subsidizing the world". Especially when they're already making $14B a year in profit, in J&J's case.

Also if the risk is so high why are drug companies so profitable over the long term? Pharma firms are head and shoulders the most profitable firms in the S&P 500 every single year.

High risk, high reward. Why would anyone take a higher risk for a lower reward?

Pharmaceutical companies in the S&P500 are so profitable because of barriers to entry, massive capital requirements, and a whole biotechnology industry feeding them acquisitions. Biotech startups going under with zero revenue after raising hundreds of millions of dollars from VCs and institutional investors is a regular occurrence. Since the brunt of the pure research is publicly funded and other investors chasing ROI take care of much of the R&D risk, big pharma companies benefit a lot from other people's money just for providing exit opportunities for smaller companies.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#77

Post by yellow_viper »

mullen wrote: post #42
overcast wrote: post #2

Awesome. Have to give at least one thing to Trump. He's addressing exactly what he said in his campaign.

He has not done a single thing he said he would. He is all talk. This is just another issue that he will just talk and nothing will happen.

He has done loads of things he said he would

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer...

Promise kept - 5

Compromise - 1

Stalled - 1

In the works - 14

Promise broken - 0

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#78

Post by microcolonel »

mikeash wrote: post #49
microcolonel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not seen a case that what Shkreli did reduced the availability of his niche drug to patients.

Are you proposing that every single patient using Thiola or Daraprim was either able to afford the new price or get someone else to pay for it?

He outright offered to send the drug at no cost to patients whose insurers did not cover it.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#79

Post by klodolph »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #71
klodolph wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin Shkreli gouged to drive down the company's stock price. The problem with Shkreli had everything to do with market manipulation and almost nothing to do with drugs in particular.

The drug was then unaffordable regardless of intent. You can't separate the two. Again, your solution doesn't stop this.

> Again, your solution doesn't stop this.

I'm honestly quite confused here. What solution, exactly, are you talking about? I don't remember proposing a solution.

In the Shkreli case, the drug price was raised in September 2015, and a cheap replacement was available on the market in October 2015 from a different company.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#80

Post by e40 »

StClaire wrote: post #7

It costs a quarter to manufacture each pill but the manufacturers charge several dollars for that pill. But they don't just price gouge. Drug companies need to file patents on their drug almost as soon as they sketch they come up with drug. From there they need at least 8 years to get through the FDAs approval process, so the manufacturers don't get nearly as much exclusive time with their IP as other industries. (Th…

We have evidence that the FDA errs too conservatively and doesn't approve (or delays) drugs that would have turned out totally safe and helped people.

I'd like to see evidence for that. My impression, from all that I've read on the subject, the truth is quite the opposite. The FDA's funding has steadily been cut over the years and the restrictions on drug trials have been more lax over time. For example, drug trials have famously small sample sizes and are completely run by the companies themselves.

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