Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5 • Hacker News Board

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#121

Post by Scandiravian » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:34 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #95

acchow wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things like insulin are long paid off, and the pricing there has generated controversy. People have been charged $1000 a month for it [1]. Humalog and NovoLog both have expired patents. There are newer, better insulins. But these drugs were state of the art just 25 years ago.

The older products are much more expensive in the US too. It’s price gouging, and that’s when regulation has been imposed. The newer products are cheaper elsewhere in the world. The US is getting ripped off by big pharma.

First of, I think that health-care prices in the US are horrible and have terrible consequences for patients

However, the blame doesn't lie with pharmaceutical companies. They're not selling their products cheaper elsewhere because they hate the US and love other countries

They're doing it because the US has created a system that benefits corporations more than its citizens. If blame needs to be distributed it lies with the people in power who built these systems and those who gave them that power

Healthcare in Europe is cheaper because the population fought for it, sometimes literally

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#122

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #113

pstrateman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the last one makes the distinction between modern synthetics and basic insulin. Frankly the US pays for the cost of the research while the rest of the world just pays for the cost of production. If you want to fix the cost of insulin products (and many other drugs) in the US you need to figure out how to make everybody else pay for the true costs. Edit: also your last source there doesn't even know what it's tal…

> Frankly the US pays for the cost of the research while the rest of the world just pays for the cost of production. Oh come the fuck on, this has been the talking point since the early 2000's. Surely nobody still believes this horse shit. Phizer by itself raked in 50 billion last year alone.

It comes up here in NZ every few years, as there is frustration that we aren’t paying as much as the drug companies would like. The US leaned on us hard to scrap our single payer system.

This sympathy for these massive companies in this thread depressing. Big Agg and Big Tech don’t get this free pass.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#123

Post by nabla9 » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:35 PM UTC

throwaway5959 wrote: post #14

If the EU can fine Apple and Google, the US should be able to fine Novo.

That's against US law. The US has innovated the laws that make NN profits possible and helped other countries to adopt them.

EU created anti trust laws that makes fining Apple and Google possible.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#124

Post by Scandiravian » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:36 PM UTC

joatmon-snoo wrote: post #115

Scandiravian wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's difficult to implement. There's a risk that companies might end up not launching new products on the US market There's several factors that impact US drug prices. For instance FDA approvals are significantly more costly than EMA ones and the bargaining power of healthcare providers is worse compared to a single payer system I have no knowledge of US laws, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kin…

No such law here in the states, just a political atmosphere where some people adore the idea of socialism and others see it as the coming of the end of times. Combine that with a highly complex industry structure that’s been entrenched for decades, and you end up in a situation where it’s near impossible to pass laws that actually structurally change our system. (It’s almost the opposite, in fact, where our courts ha…

Thanks for the clarification! :)

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#125

Post by j7ake » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:38 PM UTC

They made a product that people want to pay lots of money for.

I don’t see why they should not be allowed to price this product to meet the insanely high demand.

How much it costs to make is irrelevant to the discussion. This drug wouldn’t have existed without Novo Nordisk, they deserve to profit so they can continue making new drugs.

What is next, should we limit the amount of money JK Rowling can make off her books because it is essentially free to produce?

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#126

Post by gizajob » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:39 PM UTC

You know what else is cheap and helps with weight loss?

Bicycles.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#127

Post by GoodJokes » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:39 PM UTC

rapatel0 wrote: post #54

ecocentrik wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not a single drug company on the market that stops charging a high price for a drug as soon its covered its research expenditure.

you also need to cover the cost of the 100 drugs that failed at various stages of the pipeline. Not saying that it's not a screwed up industry, but stories like these distort the problem as well

[dead]

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#128

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:41 PM UTC

I want Pharma to be incredibly profitable. I want kids to sign up for chemistry majors hoping they can work for pharmacy companies rather than sign up for computer science hoping they can work for companies serving ads.

I want there to be full employment for experts in drug design and testing.

I don’t want Pharma to be a limited profitability industry that slowly loses money and talent to other industries such as tech or entertainment.

I want kids to dream of becoming the next billionaire by develops drug that cures cancer rather than becoming a billionaire by inventing a more addictive social media app.

Talent goes where the money is. If the money gets removed, the innovation will slowly go away. And like with Boeing, it may take decades for the results to be fully realized.

Covid-19 demonstrated how important Pharma was to society. With the vaccines, Pharma yielded a consumer surplus of literally trillions of dollars (just from being able to re-open the economies).

Yes there was academia that had the basic research, but you needed companies and scientists that had years and years of experience designing, testing, productionizing, and distributing medicines and vaccines.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#129

Post by kwhitefoot » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:41 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #24

The world no longer has an obesity problem. It has a semaglutide access problem. We can't manufacture virtue at scale, but we can make vast amounts of a simple organic compound. Give it away. The public health benefits will pay for themselves.

Wouldn't be better for people to simply eat better? Obesity levels are much lower in Norway than they are in the UK and US. As far as I can tell this is because in Norway we simply eat less fast and ultraprocessed food.

Re: Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1k drug can be made for $5

#130

Post by pstrateman » Sat, Mar 30, 2024, 9:43 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #113

pstrateman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the last one makes the distinction between modern synthetics and basic insulin. Frankly the US pays for the cost of the research while the rest of the world just pays for the cost of production. If you want to fix the cost of insulin products (and many other drugs) in the US you need to figure out how to make everybody else pay for the true costs. Edit: also your last source there doesn't even know what it's tal…

> Frankly the US pays for the cost of the research while the rest of the world just pays for the cost of production. Oh come the fuck on, this has been the talking point since the early 2000's. Surely nobody still believes this horse shit. Phizer by itself raked in 50 billion last year alone.

Pfizer's world wide net income was $2.12bn USD in 2023.

I guarantee you 100% of that came from the united states.