If it is an effective treatment, tell me why we should pay $2,340 per patient, and not just invalidate their patent on the grounds of public good? The US gov partially paid for its development in the first place.
Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
21–30 of 114 posts
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How many years of normalizing and internalizing the utter insanity that is the US medical industrial complex does it take to be able to just say that with a straight face? I hate to tell you, but it's not better in Europe just because the racket is obfuscated by several more layers.
Not sure why they down-vote you, you didn't said anything about 'free' healthcare, and you are absolute right, the 'customer' does not see much of those layers, but ask any Healthcare-worker that has to work with insurance...they can tell you story's!
Very few people have private health care in Europe, at least in the UK - they are either comparatively very rich or have a job that provides it (again, very rare and probably a job that pays very well to begin with).
You will see a lot of buying power from free health care providers as they represent tens-hundreds of millions of people - they will most likely pass on a price gouging drug in favour for others. They won't pay market rate, whatever the drug manufacturers say.
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#23American taxpayers contributed at least $70m to the development of this drug[0] and our reward is to be gouged by Gilead. It's the exact same shit they've pulled with Truvada[1] and it's grotesque. [0]: https://www.citizen.org/article/the-real-story-of-remdesivir... [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/opinion/prep-hiv-aids-dru...
It typically costs ~$2B to develop a new drug. Taxpayer contributions are practically negligible.
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#24Seems expensive for a drug with "no significant benefits"
https://www.barrons.com/news/antiviral-remdesivir-showed-no-...
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#25If it is an effective treatment, tell me why we should pay $2,340 per patient, and not just invalidate their patent on the grounds of public good? The US gov partially paid for its development in the first place.
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Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#26> In normal circumstances, we would price a medicine according to the value it provides.
Which makes medicine so expensive that it provides no value to the many people who are in a bad position and cannot afford it. Pricing by the value something provides is only relevant for those who can afford that value in the first place (they assume you stay for the duration; you are lucky if you do not); for the rest it provides no value at all because they don't get into that position in the first place.
As I read online, the entire treatment in India is well under $100[0]. I am all for getting the R&D money back, but charging medicine based on value (who determines that value anyway; that's highly subjective) it may provide is a recipe for disaster. Especially in this case; they stand to sell 10s of millions of these vials (even though they don't really seem to 'provide value' as clearly as advertised as others have mentioned here), so the R&D/investment story is... not very good.
[0] https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/european-regulator...
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#27What this letter did not address is the fact that the US is hoarding almost all of Gilead's Remdesivir in the upcoming few months. Leaving the rest of the world with almost nothing. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/us-buys-up-w...
Isn’t the welfare of its citizens basically the primary job for any government?
Hopefully now that this is determined as effective the manufacturing can ramp up and the whole world can get access.
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#28They did not know what to do with this drug, because it turned to be flop almost for every virus they tried. They would have scrapped it, if not for covid. Now they are telling us they need to recover R&D price. Very funny.
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#29If it is an effective treatment, tell me why we should pay $2,340 per patient, and not just invalidate their patent on the grounds of public good? The US gov partially paid for its development in the first place.
Maybe so that next time we need them, they don't just say, naahh, gonna do something instead that actually pays?
Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing
#30They say the goal is to help as many people as possible, and that this principle has guided their development and pricing of the drug. How do they reconcile this principle with the huge price difference between the USA and the rest of the world? Or between the developed world and the developing world? I assume they are still making a profit selling doses at low costs to developing countries. If the goal is to help as…
They’re not selling the drugs to developing countries and won’t be for a while. There simply isn’t enough stock to go around.