31–40 of 76 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All too true. By the time they do something about it the exclusivity would've ended and the price of the drug dropping back to normal.
I'm still optimistic. For some reason, while the general exclusive is for 3 years, for my condition(Familial Mediterranean Fever) it is 7 years. Yikes.
This Google Books link seems to give the appropriate amount of drops per hour, which passes my BS detector. But like I said, you need a real herbalist for guidelines for making the tincture, or buy it from them.
http://books.google.com/books?id=gDLIrCv26hkC&pg=PA272&#...
http://www.aminaherbs.com/product.php?id_product=91 Also sells the seed, as do other sites. I just found this one due to the bulk nature that they sell in. I have no clue if this company is good, but just wanted to show that it is easy to buy.
Lastly, I thought this was some sort of sick "April Fools". Come to find out that this is normal FDA business with corporate profit extraction.
Just had an epiphany. If it is these old drugs (since 6th century) that are getting monopolized.... It means they don't really need advanced technology to create! Just grind some herbs, measure carefully, sun dry, etc. If they're over-charging by 5000% you might actually save money producing the drugs yourself for self consumption! Who's up for creating a website to share recipes of these drugs?
> Who's up for creating a website to share recipes of these drugs? No, seriously, somebody please figure a pharmaceutics delivery business model that does not depend on FDA for legality & operations.
Many of the plants used in traditional chinese medicine are extremely dangerous to use otherwise. One I know, if injected, causes death. If you breathe the smoke of the same burning material, you cannot speak. But just like all drugs, they have their intended purpose if used wisely.
Now, how about would they get around the FDA? It's simple: It's the chemical application of the Tao Te Ching. It's cheap, but pull the "spiritual and religious" card.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The counterpoint to that is if they don't grant the exclusivity, the cos won't be willing to invest money and resources to do the testing because the returns wouldn't be as strong. In these cases though, the counter-argument to that is the price jump is unjustified relative to the $ invested in doing the testing.
At first I was puzzled by the upvotes because pro-monopoly arguments are usually unpopular here, but then I realized that I didn't really express myself clearly and that probably my argument was misunderstood :) So I'm not against drug monopolies, or patents, (or copyright, for that matter) - in fact I'm staunchly pro those things; the problem in this case is the strictness of the FDA, setting an arbitrarily high bar…
These are drugs that have never been approved by the FDA. No manufacturers were previously approved and no standards have been changed.
The FDA wanted clinical trials on the drugs. There are incentives in place to encourage companies to develop drugs for rare conditions where there are not enough patients to warrant investing in for economic rewards (and yet you envision companies in competition over them). These include grants for the required trials, tax credits for half of the cost of developing the drug, and a seven year monopoly on the drug.
Based on previous "investigations", basically nothing will happen to the company and things will continue as usual. The $5-per-pill price URL Pharma set for Colcrys surprised the FDA Find the people that were surprised and terminate them immediately. The "FDA" wasn't surprised, it was a few idiots left in charge. What if they just do a compromise of $2.50 a pill, is that really going to help anyone when it was 10 cen…
This is just unbelievably incorrect, absurd, and just shows complete ignorance of the healthcare industry. Profits for healthcare companies are the same as those in any other industry. A quick check on Yahoo Finance will let you compare their respective financial statements. The culprit is in the endless rules and regulations that drive up costs to make the pills, preventing competitors from coming in to drive down t…
In effect the FDA set a ~1 billion dollar bounty from doing 2 study's on this drug. What was not said is there are limited resources in the industry so while this company went after this fairly safe and profitable drug plenty of other companies went after other drugs and there is no incentive to research the same drug as another company. This is a land grab plain and simple and only an idiot would think a company would act any differently.
PS: And when you realize the only thing patents gained from this was higher prices you need to conciser it poor regulation. (1 study of 200 people says next to nothing about a drug regularly taken but 10's of thousands of people for hundreds of years.)
I think maybe its about time we set up something life the NSF to conduct these trial for the FDA (in the particular case of orphaned and old drugs) and generally does a much better job of dealing with the mess that drug trails have come to be. At some point, this knowledge becomes a public good and the conflict of interest presented by those seeking to win approval also being the ones who stand to win a "get a monopo…
I think maybe its about time we set up something life the NSF to conduct these trial for the FDA (in the particular case of orphaned and old drugs) and generally does a much better job of dealing with the mess that drug trails have come to be. At some point, this knowledge becomes a public good and the conflict of interest presented by those seeking to win approval also being the ones who stand to win a "get a monopo…
> One can't fault the FDA for the price increases for Makeda and Colcrys; the agency is doing what it's supposed to do, clearing out old drugs and improving the standards of the national Pharmacopoeia. (Disclosure: I worked as a speechwriter for FDA in early 2010 but had no involvement in the colchicine or 17OHP issues.) I think anyone will agree that FDA's intentions are good. But sadly, what really matters are cons…
The various hurdles imposed by the FDA raise the cost of drugs. Various proponents of the current FDA regime tell us that this is necessary, and that the cost increase is worth it for the FDA guarantees of efficacy and safety.
Will those proponents now come out and defend the FDA in this instance? Will they declare that the new safety guarantees given to patients are worth $2.40/pill?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still optimistic. For some reason, while the general exclusive is for 3 years, for my condition(Familial Mediterranean Fever) it is 7 years. Yikes.
What does that even mean? The pharmacist is going to ask you why you are taking the drug to decide if they can give you the generic version or not?