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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

#131

Post by mabbo »

maxerickson wrote: post #102
mabbo wrote: post #97

This is a great case where unregulated free markets absolutely fail to solve the problem. Companies like Impax Laboratories are sole-suppliers, and the cost to produce is the smallest cost, once initial capital costs are laid down to build the factories to produce them. What would happen if a challenger appeared? A new company gets some funding to try to make a small number of high profit drugs, competing with Impax?…

Drugs are heavily regulated in the US.

But is that the problem here? I mean, yes, if the rules about importing went away this problem would vanish over night, but let's ignore that for just a moment and imagine this same problem exists on a world-wide scale (it very well could!).

How can a newcomer get into this market and undercut a competitor who can essentially drop prices as low as they want without losing their profitability?

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

#132

Post by mikeash »

notyourday wrote: post #130
mikeash wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m saying that even if we don’t have reciprocity, if the drug is separately approved in both countries, it should be legal to buy in Canada and take to the US.

No, because our system of approvals does not treat re-import the same as direct import.

By “should,” I’m saying it ought to be structured this way, not that it actually is at this time.

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

#133

Post by justin66 »

rhino369 wrote: post #69
jonwachob91 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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. The article also says albendazole, the drug in question, can be purchased in the UK for $2. Why can I not start a pharma company that A) imports albendazo…

I think our system is so fundamentally broken, you should be able to do that. But if you could, it would be an end run around the FDA. Might as well shut the FDA down in that case. If you add burdensome regulatory costs to some competitors (domestic pills) but not others (foreign pills), the others will win all business. That is an unfair playing field. So part of the deal with regulating drugs in America is that you…

> I think I'd probably allow importation of the exact drug, by the exact manufacturer.

Well, right. It's pretty impossible to justify not allowing importation of the drug for any safety-related reasons if it is literally the same product from the same manufacturer.

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

#134

Post by FLUX-YOU »

sol_remmy wrote: post #74
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that insurance costs continue to rise for no real reason. They even made costs rise when more people were insured because of ACA. In what world does that make sense?

> They even made costs rise when more people were insured because of ACA. In what world does that make sense? I'm surprised you don't remember the reason because it was in the news 24/7. It's because insurance costs 10X for sick people (because they also draw 10X in insurance), those sick people could not afford their insurance, and the ACA gave those uninsured sick people deeply subsidized insurance, raising the ave…

>It's because insurance costs 10X for sick people (because they also draw 10X in insurance)

Is that before or after the sticker price that hospitals give insurance companies?

I'm not sure anyone can get accurate prices, so I'm immediately distrustful of your 10x number.

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

#135

Post by notyourday »

mikeash wrote: post #132
notyourday wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because our system of approvals does not treat re-import the same as direct import.

By “should,” I’m saying it ought to be structured this way, not that it actually is at this time.

Sure, we should just redefine it.

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

#138

Post by rasz »

snarf21 wrote: post #18
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.

Yes, this is true. There are other things that would change too. We could have these (or other) pills for pennies. However, we can't have a 24 hour drive through pharmacy on every other corner and an Urgent Care on the other AND pills for pennies. Yes, the companies are making tons but a lot of that money pays for people to make it convenient for you to get your pills. And as someone else commented, we are basically…

Yes, cheap medication and cheap accessible care is impossible. Its not like you can get $2 tetanus shot without any waiting in china in a walk in clinic or anything.

oh, you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoU_9G1Ae_I

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

#139

Post by rasz »

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."

Clearly Canadian system is flawed and unable to viably finance modern drug development.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/11/25/the_strange_t...

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

#140

Post by jsjohnst »

Retric wrote: post #120
notyourday wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

neither AT&T nor Samsung were able to do it against MCI or Vizio. But, sure, lets pretend it is different this time.

AT&T did not have a total monopoly and the ability to charge 8000x prices. Remember the drug company is already ahead even if they never sell this drug again. That's not true of less extreme price increases.

During the days where MCI had a pronounced savings over AT&T (aka mid to late 90s), it was only 5-6x difference [0]. Based on that, I agree, totally different ball game with pharmaceuticals (like 3 orders of magnitude difference).

[0] Source: I worked for MCI during that era. When we were selling flat rate 10¢/min, most of the folks we talked to were paying 40-60¢/min with AT&T for intra and inter-lata calls. Folks thought the price was so low that there was some hidden charge or it was some kind of scam. Of course AT&T (pre-SBC acquisition) responded and dropped their prices, but they took a long time to do it.

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