The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
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Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#2There's a newer Bloomberg article with a matching title that's different from the one linked to here.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-13/trump-dru...
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#3There's a newer Bloomberg article with a matching title that's different from the one linked to here. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-13/trump-dru...
Your article was the content of the link I originally submitted.
Mods: Can you update thread to point to the above link? Bloomberg bamboozled my post.
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#4One of the biggest reasons is that the US essentially subsidizes drugs for many other countries, such as Canada, that impose price controls, and threaten to allow other manufacturers to provide the drugs in their countries if the companies don't accept the imposed price. This enables these countries to get access to new medicine without paying the cost of developing the new medicine. Its time to end the trade war on medicines.
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#5> Over time, Big Pharma learned how to game the law. As the patent for the original drug approached expiration, companies added wrinkles — a new coating for the pill, a time-release version, and so on — that they then patented. If the patents were approved, and they usually were, the exclusivity clock would start ticking all over again.
This is so misleading. When this happens, only the new "wrinkles" are patented. The drug itself becomes free for everyone to use.
> Hatch-Waxman worked exactly the way it was supposed to for a long time. For many high-priced drugs, once the generics flooded the market, the price went down by as much as 90 percent. Statins are a good example: The price of generic Lipitor is about $19 for 90 tablets, while the price of branded Lipitor is $165 for 30 tablets. The market share for the branded drug often dropped by 75 percent or more. Over time, Big Pharma learned how to game the law. ... The rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira is a perfect example of what has happened.
Humira is not an example of "gaming" Hatch-Waxman. Hatch-Waxman assumes that the secret sauce is a drug's chemical formula. It creates a process for generics to be created when the patent on that formula expires. Humira is what's called a biologic, where the secret sauce is not only the active ingredient, but the process of manipulating bacterial cells into manufacturing the drug: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-07/why-the-b.... AbbVie has another five years left on those patents.
The Hatch Waxman equivalent for biologics ("BPCIA") was only enacted in 2010: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/developmentapprovalprocess/howdrug.... Because the law is so new, it will take time before the generics industry figures out how to navigate the new process.
The article's list of policy recommendations is also ignorant:
> First, shorten the patent exclusivity period to 10 years. (Drug companies say they need the longer time to recoup their research and development costs, but the truth is most companies spend more on marketing than R&D.)
Drug companies have similar SG&A (overhead) to R&D ratios as tech companies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16585194. The point, though oft-repeated, is completely nonsensical. Nobody wants to spend money on marketing. If drug companies could recoup their investment faster by spending less on marketing, they would.
> Second, outlaw the practice of paying companies to keep generics off the market and similar forms of gamesmanship.
It's already a violation of antitrust law: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/mergers-comp....
> Third — and most important of all — don’t allow companies to extend the period of exclusivity beyond the original 10 years.
That incorrectly assumes that patenting improvements to a drug extends the period of exclusivity of the original drug.
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#6The title posted here makes no sense at all. It's not the original and it has nothing to do with the article. The moderators should really change it as it implies somehow that the high cost of drugs is the fault of the American people, not the horrible patent laws that we have no control over or the actual drug companies exploiting ill people for mass profits.
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#7Here’s the rub with developing something as important as a medicine. If it works, people often _need_ it to prolong their life or improve their health. What drug companies are selling... isn’t like what other companies are selling. We ought not look at it through our normal understanding of goods in a free market.
Take, for example, Sovaldi, a drug which cures Hepatits C. After discovering this drug and confirming its efficacy and safety, the next question should be, IMO: how fast can we possible scale production to quickly stop liver damage and cure those suffering. Instead we have Medicaid setting absurd rules (https://www.chlpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Annals-of-I...) whereby sufferers must get sicker before they are eligible to be cured. That is seriously fucked up.
Edit: to be clear on why states must do this: Gilead Sciences is charging $84,000 for a course of treatment and there isn’t enough money to treat every patient. Gilead offers the same treatment in Egypt for $900. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hepatitis-egypt-gilead-sc...)
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#8One of the biggest reasons is that the US essentially subsidizes drugs for many other countries, such as Canada, that impose price controls, and threaten to allow other manufacturers to provide the drugs in their countries if the companies don't accept the imposed price. This enables these countries to get access to new medicine without paying the cost of developing the new medicine. Its time to end the trade war on…
Citation needed
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#9One of the biggest reasons is that the US essentially subsidizes drugs for many other countries, such as Canada, that impose price controls, and threaten to allow other manufacturers to provide the drugs in their countries if the companies don't accept the imposed price. This enables these countries to get access to new medicine without paying the cost of developing the new medicine. Its time to end the trade war on…
are you sure that the cost of development is the real issue?
the last numbers I saw, 2015, showed marketing budgets for medicine to be often times twice what was being spent on R&D in the US. currently, only four countries allow this time of marketing: New Zealand, Brazil, Hong Kong, and United States.
it sounds like the US isn't necessarily subsidizing drug R&D, and instead is subsidizing marketing.
Re: The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books
#10Here’s the rub with developing something as important as a medicine. If it works, people often _need_ it to prolong their life or improve their health. What drug companies are selling... isn’t like what other companies are selling. We ought not look at it through our normal understanding of goods in a free market. Take, for example, Sovaldi, a drug which cures Hepatits C. After discovering this drug and confirming it…
My coworker's dad had this happen to him. He got Hep C through a blood transfusion for a routine surgery. The insurance company waited until he was almost dead before starting the treatment. Now his liver is in such bad shape that if he has any alcohol it will kill him. Ridiculous, especially since they were going to pay for it anyway.