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Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

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Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#31

Post by justin66 »

harryh wrote: post #15
gaius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the pill retailed for $0.04 in the US could the R&D be recouped? Americans should feel good about high drug prices: that's your aid to the Third World right there. Not the most efficient technique but still better than not doing it at all.

While in general I agree with you that is not the case here. The drug's patent expired decades ago. The issue is that there is only 1 US manufacturer giving them pricing power. It's unclear to me why another drug manufacturer doesn't come in and undercut the price. This is what happens in most other industries. My gut suspects the arduous FDA approval process, but I have no real evidence for this hypothesis.

> It's unclear to me why another drug manufacturer doesn't come in and undercut the price.

From the sound of things these diseases were until very recently isolated to poorer countries. Even today, with the increased number of cases, there might not be enough money to be made based on a few sick North Americans to justify tooling up to make a new drug. (Some of that is about FDA regulatory approval, but not much since it's not a new drug. They'd be manufacturing something that has already been tested and approved.)

Ideally the drug company making this thing would just stop being boneheads about pricing. Having this in the news will probably help.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#32

Post by ceejayoz »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #22
empath75 wrote: post #4

The answer is that our insurance and medical billing system is a complete tirefire and needs to be burned to the ground and replaced with something sane.

Typical socialist answer. Burn a working system to the ground, so everyone suffers equally. At the very least the current system allows poor countries to enjoy cheap excellent drugs, researched and paid for by the wealthy western countries.

> working

Well, yes, it'd be horrible to burn a working system to the ground.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#33

Post by geekamongus »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #22
empath75 wrote: post #4

The answer is that our insurance and medical billing system is a complete tirefire and needs to be burned to the ground and replaced with something sane.

Typical socialist answer. Burn a working system to the ground, so everyone suffers equally. At the very least the current system allows poor countries to enjoy cheap excellent drugs, researched and paid for by the wealthy western countries.

Please let us know what is "working" for US citizens about the current system.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#34

Post by dmm »

notyourday wrote: post #5
nasmorn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the FDA will fight to your death for your right to safe medicine.

I'm baffled by the snark. Could someone please attempt to reconcile the following positions for me: 1. We need regulation of drugs/medicine/etc because we do not want some snake oil peddlers peddling arsenic as medicine? 2. Regulations prevent us from getting shit cheap! Baaaaa!

1. The vast majority of the cost of FDA regulation is in ensuring the effectiveness of medicines, yet whenever someone defends the purpose of the FDA they cite examples of medicine safety.

2. The FDA keeps arsenic out of our medicines and that's totally related to fulfilling arbitrary and expensive effectiveness regulations! Ineffective and dangerous medicines like fen-phen getting through just proves we need more regulations! Baaa!

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#35

Post by notyourday »

ashelmire wrote: post #20
notyourday wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm baffled by the snark. Could someone please attempt to reconcile the following positions for me: 1. We need regulation of drugs/medicine/etc because we do not want some snake oil peddlers peddling arsenic as medicine? 2. Regulations prevent us from getting shit cheap! Baaaaa!

Presumably, other first world nations also regulate drugs. Are the drugs as expensive in those nations? If not, why not?

They have different rules than we do. Adjusting rules is fairly easy: change the bloody FDA. Agency lives at the pleasure of administration. We had (D)s in control of all three branches of government. Now we have (R)s in control of all three branches of government. The reason why this is not changing is because a compelling case is made that the current rules for !Garbage are better than the proposed alternatives.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#36

Post by cvsh »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #28

No mention that the average wage in Tanzania is $45 to $50 a month? As a proportion to wage it is actually more comparable than at first glance. As a solution though, I think we need reciprocity between drug regulatory agencies and open up drug sales between countries that have reciprocity. For example, if a drug is approved for sale in Canada it should be purchasable by people in the US and visa versa. It would allo…

The median monthly household income in the U.S. is $4710.

The difference is two orders of magnitude.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#37

Post by jsjohnst »

notyourday wrote: post #25
jsjohnst wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are jumping to a conclusion without having enough supporting evidence. Regulation on drugs didn’t suddenly get 8,000x more expensive for drug companies in the last few years. An alternative theory, which I can’t prove any more than you can prove yours, is that due to some pharmaceutical companies realizing they were leaving serious money on the table, they tried hiking prices. Once they realized there wou…

It contradicts basic economics. If you raise prices 8000x and I will go into competition with you and raise prices 7999x i.e. do what MCI did to ATT and Vizio did to Samsung.

In the examples you gave, they were huge markets and they were ripe for disruption. As the article laid out, most of the drugs which have experienced this huge hike are ones with very limited markets. It’s not worth it for a pharmaceutical company to jump into a new drug with almost no market for it.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#38

Post by acdha »

harryh wrote: post #17
acdha wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do but there’s an entire industry devoted to lobbying against competition.

The issue is that there is no real competition for drug pricing in Canada due to the fact that the Canadian government imposes price controls. You are, of course, free to argue that this is a better way of doing things. But it's not "competition."

So there's no way for a company to compete on how to hit that price threshold while still turning a profit?

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#39

Post by yequalsx »

notyourday wrote: post #25
jsjohnst wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are jumping to a conclusion without having enough supporting evidence. Regulation on drugs didn’t suddenly get 8,000x more expensive for drug companies in the last few years. An alternative theory, which I can’t prove any more than you can prove yours, is that due to some pharmaceutical companies realizing they were leaving serious money on the table, they tried hiking prices. Once they realized there wou…

It contradicts basic economics. If you raise prices 8000x and I will go into competition with you and raise prices 7999x i.e. do what MCI did to ATT and Vizio did to Samsung.

Not if there is collusion or cartel pricing. There are also regulatory means of limiting competition. The basic economics notion works in a market that is mostly free. I suspect that most things related to the American health care system do not qualify as a free market.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#40

Post by notyourday »

dmm wrote: post #34
notyourday wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm baffled by the snark. Could someone please attempt to reconcile the following positions for me: 1. We need regulation of drugs/medicine/etc because we do not want some snake oil peddlers peddling arsenic as medicine? 2. Regulations prevent us from getting shit cheap! Baaaaa!

1. The vast majority of the cost of FDA regulation is in ensuring the effectiveness of medicines, yet whenever someone defends the purpose of the FDA they cite examples of medicine safety. 2. The FDA keeps arsenic out of our medicines and that's totally related to fulfilling arbitrary and expensive effectiveness regulations! Ineffective and dangerous medicines like fen-phen getting through just proves we need more re…

We have one very interesting and totally unregulated market that is quite similar. The market is cosmetics and beauty products. As long as products make no medical claims it is total buyer beware. I seriously doubt anyone in the United States wants that to be applied to medicine and medical instruments.
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