A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
1–10 of 274 posts
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#2[flagged]
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#3It's a very interesting drug. There are a lot of concerns right now around PFAS in water supplies, for example, and Miebo/Evotears are pure PFAS (perfluorohexyloctane) that's instilled directly in the eye, giving you a dose somewhere around a million times higher than levels of concern in drinking water.
But it is absolutely revolutionary if you have dry eyes. Quotes include "I feel like my eye is actually too wet now"
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#4Why is it eye medication seems to be the market with the slimier moves? Sudden memories to when Allegran sold the patents for Restasis to the Awkwesasne-Mohawks to try to protect it with soverign immunity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_St._Regis_Mohawk_Tribe_and...
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#5Nothing says capitalism and free market like good extortion on health products and services. That's the way to go USA.
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#6out of curiosity, how much would this drug cost in Europe if they had required prescriptions as well
the article does a good job of showing the self serving double speak and the lack of pursuing an OTC option in the US, but I want to compare costs directly, since the article also acknowledges that OTC would have been much cheaper than $800 in the US too
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#7[flagged]
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#8FYI for anyone who isn't familiar with the wacky US insurance situation: Nobody in the US actually pays $800 for the drug. That's the "list price" for insurance companies to pay. Even insurance companies don't pay that price because they negotiate their own rates with the drug companies, which are lower.
Then the drug companies come in and offer a "savings card" which you apply at the pharmacy like another layer of insurance. I searched and Miebo has one too: https://miebo.blsavingscard.com/ You'd have to read all the fine print, but it reveals that the actual cash-pay price is $225 (still high, obviously) and they have a co-pay assistance program that reduces your copay to $0 to incentivize you to get your insurance billed for this drug. So a lot of people who take this drug in the US actually pay $0 because they sign up for this card.
The FDA is partially to blame for this situation: They required a complete New Drug Application before they would let anyone bring it to market, even though it's over the counter in other countries.
The cost of performing a New Drug Application starts in the mid hundreds of millions of dollars range and can extend into the billions for some drugs.
So nobody could feasibly introduce it to the market here without investing $500 million or more up front. At that price, your only viable option is to stick a big price tag on it and try to milk that money back from insurers.
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#9in some part of europe, we have national healthcare so basically people don't think they are paying their medications, like there was some magic money.
in that case, you don't care if you drug cost 10€ or 2000€ because you aren't spending a single € from your own wallet, at least if you don't factor in taxes.
Contrary to the USA where it's a much more responsible market, people do pay for the medications or they get it paid by their own insurance but it cost them directly a lot of money.
I would think that americans would be much more vigilant about what medication they take, the price it cost, and so would have much lower pricing. That's just how free market work, and technically there are many medication manufacturer and many customer.
Is it the proof that a true unregulated free market doesn't work ? if left unsupervised, big companies are going to buy smaller companies until they are monopoly or make secret, behind the door, deal to keep price up.
It's what the USA is made on, the idea of freedom and free market. i believe the idea of unregulated market is more recent, think the 70's, but surely in the 50 years since then american would have pushed back against it and not elected people like Trump who are all in.
Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.
#10out of curiosity, how much would this drug cost in Europe if they had required prescriptions as well the article does a good job of showing the self serving double speak and the lack of pursuing an OTC option in the US, but I want to compare costs directly, since the article also acknowledges that OTC would have been much cheaper than $800 in the US too
Not a meaningful difference. I can't recall a time when I got prescription drugs in EU and had to pay a lot.