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India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

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Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#11

Post by WiseWeasel »

ig1 wrote: post #5
drsim wrote: post #2

The world needs more people like him: in a position of power with the guts to stick it to companies who put money before humanitarianism.

The problem is that if these drugs end up entering the grey market in the developed world, it disincentives investment in the next generation of drugs. Huge amounts of money have to be raised to make a new drug. The cost of bringing a new drug to market is typically $800m-$1.2bn (i.e more than exit value of Instagram or Yammer is required just to get to launch). With treatments for viruses it gets even more problemat…

Maybe the US is simply a poor market to launch new drugs into, if it costs that much to get it to market. It might be better to launch in other countries, like India, and then work towards a US launch after extensive use data is available.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#12

Post by [deleted] »

deadbea7 wrote: post #3
drsim wrote: post #2

The world needs more people like him: in a position of power with the guts to stick it to companies who put money before humanitarianism.

I would also give credit to Indian patent laws that allow people like him to shake things up. "In 1972, India made only the process for making drugs patentable, not the drugs themselves." Compare this to the US where I believe you can patent the active ingredients of a drug, allowing pharmaceuticals to charge more for lifesaving medicine for a longer period of time.

[deleted]

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#13

Post by ashishgandhi »

Indian pharmaceuticals are a joke. They have zero inventions to their name. Their "secret" to selling drugs cheap lays in the following line from the article.

"In 1972, India made only the process for making drugs patentable, not the drugs themselves."

Do you really think this is smart?

Heavy R&D costs are involved in coming up with compounds that save lives. If you only have the manufacturing process that's patentable then what happens is you can "reverse engineer" drugs as the article says. I would thought the significant majority of R&D costs is pertained to identifying compounds that cure. The cost of determining the process to manufacture these discoveries was less significant.

    cost to invent drugs = identifying compounds (90%, say) + determining manufacturing process (10%)
With no way to recover[1] the 90% of the cost involved in inventing drugs you no only take away the incentive to invent drugs but you disincentivize it.

I've lost family members to cancer and I would like my country's legislature to NOT disincentivize research for cancer or any other area. I'm not sure if there have been significant medical inventions here. I tried to look but couldn't find any.

[1] You competitors will spend 10% of the cost to determine a different process to manufacture drugs and sell the compounds at tenth of your price and taking the market away from you.

Edit: Down vote? Is it because of the dissent or is it because you think I'm wrong? I'm an Indian citizen and have the right (luckily) to dissent. If you think I'm wrong I would love to know what inventions have Cipla et. al been credited with.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#14

Post by cdooh »

ashray wrote: post #7
cdooh wrote: post #6

Why is Cipla able to produce the drug at a fifth the price? Can someone please explain how Western companies price their drugs? How much do they send on R&D, marketing and all that? I mean it doesn't really make them look good does it? P.S. Being from Africa I can testify to how much of a difference Cipla's 1dollar a day AIDS drugs make a huge difference!! Here in Kenya medication is given free of charge under govern…

They don't do much R&D. Most of their drugs are copies of drugs that have been developed in western countries. The drugs are just reverse engineered and reproduced. This is pretty legal under Indian patent law and hence carries on, while Cipla, makes massive amounts of money by being just a drug manufacturer. They do save lives though :P

I meant western companies how much do they send? I once read an article that suggested that even after they've made back the money spent on R&D they still keep their prices high to keep making a profit

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#15

Post by kkowalczyk »

ig1 wrote: post #5
drsim wrote: post #2

The world needs more people like him: in a position of power with the guts to stick it to companies who put money before humanitarianism.

The problem is that if these drugs end up entering the grey market in the developed world, it disincentives investment in the next generation of drugs. Huge amounts of money have to be raised to make a new drug. The cost of bringing a new drug to market is typically $800m-$1.2bn (i.e more than exit value of Instagram or Yammer is required just to get to launch). With treatments for viruses it gets even more problemat…

This argument is demonstrably false.

Look at any commodity market, with no barriers to entry, no IP protection, thin margins, say: making bread. The logic that everybody will stop making bread because there's more money to be made in making iPads is false.

The general rule is: as long as there is money to be made, people will compete for this money.

There's a lot of money to be made in drugs and as long as it's true, companies will compete for this money, even if the margins won't be as great as they are today.

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companie...: the top pharma company makes $12bn profit on $62bn of revenue with $7bn spent on R&D.

The $12bn is a lot of wiggle room and twice the amount they spend on R&D. They are making profits hand over fist.

The $7bn total spent on R&D also puts your $1bn per drug into question - does the biggest pharma company can only do 7 new drugs per year (and I'm really generous in assuming all of that R&D goes into developing new drugs)?

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#16

Post by cdooh »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #13

Indian pharmaceuticals are a joke. They have zero inventions to their name. Their "secret" to selling drugs cheap lays in the following line from the article. "In 1972, India made only the process for making drugs patentable, not the drugs themselves." Do you really think this is smart? Heavy R&D costs are involved in coming up with compounds that save lives. If you only have the manufacturing process that's patentab…

Also speaking as someone who's lost friends to cancer, I'd not like it if the drug was there but out of my reach because it was too expensive. It's like looking through glass, you can see the other side but you can't get through

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#17

Post by ashishgandhi »

cdooh wrote: post #16
ashishgandhi wrote: post #13

Indian pharmaceuticals are a joke. They have zero inventions to their name. Their "secret" to selling drugs cheap lays in the following line from the article. "In 1972, India made only the process for making drugs patentable, not the drugs themselves." Do you really think this is smart? Heavy R&D costs are involved in coming up with compounds that save lives. If you only have the manufacturing process that's patentab…

Also speaking as someone who's lost friends to cancer, I'd not like it if the drug was there but out of my reach because it was too expensive. It's like looking through glass, you can see the other side but you can't get through

I don't believe the right answer to solving the cost problem is stealing (super) costly inventions. Cheaper and more widely accessible healthcare would probably be the more apt choice if you ask me. Debate about models such as free public healthcare, compulsory insurance, compulsory insurance where the government pays the difference that the less wealthy can't make up for, etc. would be more apt I feel. Also discussion about how to bring down cost of research can be fruitful.

But without the incentive to invest in the huge cost involved with discovering drugs, you will have nothing to look at the other side, glass or no glass.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#18

Post by cdooh »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #17
cdooh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also speaking as someone who's lost friends to cancer, I'd not like it if the drug was there but out of my reach because it was too expensive. It's like looking through glass, you can see the other side but you can't get through

I don't believe the right answer to solving the cost problem is stealing (super) costly inventions. Cheaper and more widely accessible healthcare would probably be the more apt choice if you ask me. Debate about models such as free public healthcare, compulsory insurance, compulsory insurance where the government pays the difference that the less wealthy can't make up for, etc. would be more apt I feel. Also discussi…

I concede to your superior argument. There is a better way to look at this topic but I still don't like the crippling debt cancer treatment leaves with families. Though stealing is a strong word, I'd use copying.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#19

Post by ams6110 »

cdooh wrote: post #14
ashray wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't do much R&D. Most of their drugs are copies of drugs that have been developed in western countries. The drugs are just reverse engineered and reproduced. This is pretty legal under Indian patent law and hence carries on, while Cipla, makes massive amounts of money by being just a drug manufacturer. They do save lives though :P

I meant western companies how much do they send? I once read an article that suggested that even after they've made back the money spent on R&D they still keep their prices high to keep making a profit

Well most people are not in business to just break even on their costs.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#20

Post by ashray »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #13

Indian pharmaceuticals are a joke. They have zero inventions to their name. Their "secret" to selling drugs cheap lays in the following line from the article. "In 1972, India made only the process for making drugs patentable, not the drugs themselves." Do you really think this is smart? Heavy R&D costs are involved in coming up with compounds that save lives. If you only have the manufacturing process that's patentab…

I understand and mostly agree with your sentiment. R&D is important.

However, I do feel it's important to bring up the point of making generic drugs more accessible to the masses. Sure, cancer is a big beast, but the masses out there mustn't die of tuberculosis, malaria, pneumonia, etc. just because the drugs are too expensive.

It seems like there just isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of solution. Officially licensing drugs for cheaper sales in developing countries might be a reasonable road to go down.. got any other solutions ?

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