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How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

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Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#21

Post by PhantomGremlin »

girishso wrote: post #4
pkaye wrote: post #3

Can people in now go to India on medical tourism and get the treatment much cheaper?

Not only that, I think Indian pharmas can market the drug as generic in USA too. I am not really an expert in legal stuff though.

Before you all rush out to book your flights to India to stock up on inexpensive generic drugs, read this article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/flies-found-by-fda-...

It's a link I posted in this[1] HN discussion. Any amount of Google-fu can turn up a plethora of similar articles. I hope you're feeling lucky, because IMO the potency and efficacy of Indian generics is very hit or miss.

I don't mean to single India out. The "race to the bottom" is one of the overarching global themes of the previous few decades of late stage capitalism.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8773481

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#22

Post by forrestthewoods »

And the US continues to subsidize health care across the world. You're welcome world, you're welcome.

Ok, so that's unnecessarily strong sarcasm, but it has more than a few ounces of truth to it. Even Canada has significantly cheaper drugs because US citizens get the privilege of paying more.

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#23

Post by jsprogrammer »

shoyer wrote: post #20
girishso wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think companies spend as much as we believe in researching drugs. Companies spend most on advertising and incentivizing the doctors to prescribe their medicines. The book: Bad Pharma [1] is an eye opener. The drug "Sovaldi" is making them $2.8ish billion dollars per quarter, that is almost $12 billion a year. I don't believe they spent tens of billions in developing the drug. [2] 1: http://www.amazon.com/Bad-…

It's not what they spent developing Sovaldi -- it's the fortune the industry as a whole spends developing drugs that never make it to market. That said, it's quite likely true that marketing is a bigger share of costs than R&D. Pharma companies are out there to maximize revenue, just like any other corporation. It's a reflection of the poor state of regulation in the US that we pay far more of than our share (compare…

This would be easy to study, figure out, and possibly come to conclusive results over: examine the budgets and expenses of pharmaceutical R&D departments.

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#24

Post by forrestthewoods »

girishso wrote: post #16
norikki wrote: post #11

I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…

I don't think companies spend as much as we believe in researching drugs. Companies spend most on advertising and incentivizing the doctors to prescribe their medicines. The book: Bad Pharma [1] is an eye opener. The drug "Sovaldi" is making them $2.8ish billion dollars per quarter, that is almost $12 billion a year. I don't believe they spent tens of billions in developing the drug. [2] 1: http://www.amazon.com/Bad-…

A single FDA clinical trial can cost up to 100 million. Total spend to get a new drug to market can be as much as 1 billion dollars. Most drugs don't make it. So the successes have to pay for themselves and all the losses. And the potential upside to having a success must be worth the significant financial risk required to get there.

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#25

Post by fizixer »

norikki wrote: post #11

I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…

This is a textbook example of why some economic activities cannot be based on a profit motive.

There should be an international drug research agency, to which every country should contribute, and that agency should be responsible for exploring cures for diseases, by funding academics, labs, etc.

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#26

Post by forrestthewoods »

chdir wrote: post #8

According to Wikipedia: Sofosbuvir costs US$84,000 for 12 weeks of treatment used for genotypes 1 and 2 (about US$1,000 per pill) [...] health care costs in California could increase by US$18–29 billion per year because of this medication

I wanted to call bullshit on those numbers, but wow. They're accurate. The math is almost exact even. It turns out 3.2 million people in the US have hep c (1%). Although most have no symptoms.

However the per year is bullshit. That's the cost to treat every person is California who has it. But it's expensive and popular because the cure rate is very high. That makes it more of a one time cost, not a per year cost.

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#27

Post by chdir »

norikki wrote: post #11

I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…

> spend billions... adequate period to recoup... earn enough... huge amounts of capital

All these words don't carry meaning without proper data. Unless we know how much they've spent, how much they need to recoup & grow, these claims are vague.

> stealing the fruits of other people's labor

Without studying the merits/demerits of the patent, this is a hyperbole. I'm saying, maybe your statements are true, maybe not. But without backing up with facts, they are merely sentimental.

Here's an interesting case of drug pricing. Albendazole is a fairly common/old drug. It's a broad spectrum anthelmintic that retails for a few cents in most parts of the world. Recenty, U.S. price of albendazole has increased by >4000% to over US$100 per 200-mg tablet[1].

Another example: Novartis, the company that makes the leukemia drug Gleevec, keeps raising the drug’s price, even though the drug has already delivered billions in profit to the company. [...] Novartis is just keeping up with other companies as they charge more and more for their drugs. They know we can’t say no.[2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albendazole#Controversy

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/opinion/why-drugs-cost-so-...

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#28

Post by pradn »

fizixer wrote: post #25
norikki wrote: post #11

I'm disappointed this article doesn't mention the effect this will have on future pharmaceutical investment. Companies spend billions researching and testing drugs for safety and effectiveness. Companies capable of developing successful drugs need an adequate period in which to recoup their investment and earn enough to fund new drug research. If companies know they won't have meaningful ownership over medicines they…

This is a textbook example of why some economic activities cannot be based on a profit motive. There should be an international drug research agency, to which every country should contribute, and that agency should be responsible for exploring cures for diseases, by funding academics, labs, etc.

Here's an argument in the Jacobin that argues for nationalizing pharmaceuticals: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/06/socialize-big-pharma/

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#29

Post by pradn »

vishnugupta wrote: post #18
pkaye wrote: post #3

Can people in now go to India on medical tourism and get the treatment much cheaper?

This has always been the case [1] :-). Medicines and medical care in India is cheaper, by many folds, compared to US. Anecdotaly, whenever my Indian friends working in US visit India (parents, family) one thing they never forget is to visit dentists. I initially found it very surprising but understood their reasoning when I came to know that in US you can easily go bankrupt due to medical condition, something that's…

It's hard for me to believe that people don't run out of money getting treatment in India. While prices for medical goods and services are lower than the United States, many Indians can't afford all the care they need.

Re: How India's Patent Office Destroyed Gilead's Global Game Plan

#30

Post by MichaelGG »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #21
girishso wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, I think Indian pharmas can market the drug as generic in USA too. I am not really an expert in legal stuff though.

Before you all rush out to book your flights to India to stock up on inexpensive generic drugs, read this article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/flies-found-by-fda-... It's a link I posted in this[1] HN discussion. Any amount of Google-fu can turn up a plethora of similar articles. I hope you're feeling lucky, because IMO the potency and efficacy of Indian generics is very hit or miss. I don't mean to sing…

Or this article: http://fortune.com/2013/05/15/dirty-medicine/http://fortune....

Basically the largest Indian Pharma company is corrupt to the core. Falsifying records, blatantly disregarding scientific method, omitting even basic engineering practises, lying on regulatory submissions, etc.

The FDA only does bans on a per-facility basis, so Sun (which acquired Ranbaxy) can continue to sell many things so long the FDA has not shut down that specific location. Even in non-Indian locations, the plants were terribly run. One Ranbaxy location in NJ shipped pills with glass in them. (And was penalized by a temporary restriction on selling the pills.)

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