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How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

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Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#61

Post by gruez »

bpodgursky wrote: post #34
hueving wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now US citizens are basically subsidizing other countries when it comes to drug revenue via price gouging. I would rather it be done via some other more explicit mechanism (e.g. India government subsidies) rather than at the expense of poor healthcare availability to people in the US.

Yeah, but that's not going to happen. If a big pharm company doesn't provide India-priced versions of drugs, the Indian government just declares the patent invalid and lets generics produce it for free (yes, this happens).

Sounds like a good decision by india

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#62

Post by trbvm2 »

ikeboy wrote: post #57
voodootrucker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's fair for a multi-billion dollar company to exploit the "global market" by farming work out to 3rd world countries... But not for a customer who is literally dying to take advantage of that same "global market" to save himself? Like everything else in the global economy, laws are only enforced to protect the strong against the weak, and yet we wonder how all the wealth is accumulating in the hands of the few.

How is giving people jobs exploiting them again?

By the definition of exploit. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exploit "to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account"

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#63

Post by andrewchambers »

foxylad wrote: post #58

There is obviously something unbalanced in the pharma business, and I think it is one of the corner cases where unbridled capitalism fails - perhaps because it is a need, not a want, so it is not discretionary spending. My instinct is that pharma development should be carried out by universities (the state), so it's benefits can be shared with all citizens.

It sounds more like a lack of real competition.

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#64

Post by MichaelBurge »

A quick Google search shows that they paid $11 billion for the company that sells the drug(Sovaldi), and earned $1.3 billion off of it[1] in 2016. They make half of that in the US, and something like 10% of it in all places that aren't the US, Europe, or Japan.

That's a 12% return in 2016, which isn't nearly as good as the comments in this thread would have you believe. It's an okay return, but it wouldn't really be a good investment unless they can grow those sales more. It looks like they have had some growth compared to last year, so maybe it will end up working out for them. It's certainly not "100x in profits".

A Google search shows the disease is ultimately hard-to-transmit and preventable[2]. $84,000 seems like a fair price to me for this particular case. Google says the total cost of raising a child is "$245,340", so paying a 30% premium in rare cases doesn't seem unreasonable.

A separate complaint is that the financial industry isn't covering this case well. If you expected your insurance to cover it and they don't, that is an entirely separate issue than the price of the drug. Even if they don't, it seems like there should be a market for people wanting loans to pay for cures: It seems really hard to underwrite such a loan, but it could probably be done.

What does good insurance from a reputable insurance provider that reliably pays out their claims in cases like these cost?

(Edit) I may have misread the earnings report, thinking it was for the previous year rather than the previous quarter. So the percentage is closer to 50%, and a commenter clarified that they also had another product.

[1] Earnings:

http://investors.gilead.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=69964&p=irol-ear...

Purchase price:

http://investors.gilead.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=69964&p=irol-new...

[2] Going down the list on one site that lists transmission methods: Don't have sex with weirdos carrying diseases; don't share needles with druggies; go to a licensed upscale commercial tattoo parlor instead of some shady cheap one

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#65

Post by justinpombrio »

rayiner wrote: post #10
surrealvortex wrote: post #8

I'm conflicted about this article. On the one hand, the pharmaceutical companies gouging ordinary Americans is abominable. Doing something to circumvent their greed is something to support. On the other hand, if enough people exploit loopholes like this, and the pharma company actually felt a significant drain in revenue, they may decide not to license the manufacture of these drugs in India at lower prices. If $84,0…

What exactly is "gouging?" The average wedding in the U.S. is almost $30,000. Average new car price is $33,000. Is $84,000 one-time an unreasonable price for a complete cure to a chronic disease?

The median lifetime earnings in the US is $1.7 million or so [1]. $84 thousand is 5% of that. 5% of all the money you will ever make is a lot, considering that most of that money is already accounted for by college tuition, housing, and transportation. Also consider that this is a lump sum, that you weren't planning for it, and that this may happen in the middle of your life when you've only made a fraction of all the money you will ever make.

[1] https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/colleg...

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#66

Post by rayiner »

hyperliner wrote: post #50

I really think this article is spot on taking on an issue that I believe will become more and more pressing over time as baby boomers continue to retire. However, this line felt of out of place: - "And then there's Gilead. It didn't even develop Harvoni itself; it made a business decision to pay $11 billion to buy the company that did so it could be first to market and reap the rewards, $26 billion worth. There is so…

Note that a billion dollar profit would be a 3.8% return over the life of the drug (~10 years or whatever is left on the patent). You could literally get better returns with far less risk parking that money in Treasuries.

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#67

Post by ikeboy »

trbvm2 wrote: post #62
ikeboy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is giving people jobs exploiting them again?

By the definition of exploit. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exploit "to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account"

Well that meaning of exploit doesn't have the negative connotation clearly implied above, which requires harm.

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#68

Post by rdtsc »

jessriedel wrote: post #59
rdtsc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now US citizens are basically subsidizing other countries when it comes to drug revenue via price gouging. I am ok with that. They can take even more taxes out every month if it means people get access to better healthcare.

Does it bother you that Europe and the rest of the developing world also free-ride subtantially?

Not particularly.

By the way pharmaceutical companies also free ride on public universities. Research is often done there. Even if it is from grants, it often means professors end up working and spending their time for pharma companies instead of doing other things like teaching students.

Moreover, if our goal is to win hearts and minds and I don't know, promote Democracy (at least that is what the propaganda tells us), isn't providing health saving medication or building hospitals or schools working towards that goal better than say overthrowing their government or threatening to invade.

Going back to Western Europe, I hear it is already possibly to go to Germany (or was it Norway) and attend a 4 year university there for free. Isn't that free riding So they can have our pills and we can go there and not pay $200k in student loans. Globalization and free markets, we learned that was a good thing, right ...

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#69

Post by rayiner »

andrewchambers wrote: post #63
foxylad wrote: post #58

There is obviously something unbalanced in the pharma business, and I think it is one of the corner cases where unbridled capitalism fails - perhaps because it is a need, not a want, so it is not discretionary spending. My instinct is that pharma development should be carried out by universities (the state), so it's benefits can be shared with all citizens.

It sounds more like a lack of real competition.

You can't have "real competition" in the drug industry. While the status of patents is debatable in software (where actual copying is rare), the generics manufacturers are always directly copying from the drug inventors. They don't have the capability to do their own R&D, or often even to develop a lot of the ancillary protocols themselves.

So you either have a regulated market, or massive free-riding, neither of which is "real competition."

Re: How I Got the $84k Hepatitis C Drug for $1500 by Buying It from India

#70

Post by themartorana »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #64

A quick Google search shows that they paid $11 billion for the company that sells the drug(Sovaldi), and earned $1.3 billion off of it[1] in 2016. They make half of that in the US, and something like 10% of it in all places that aren't the US, Europe, or Japan. That's a 12% return in 2016, which isn't nearly as good as the comments in this thread would have you believe. It's an okay return, but it wouldn't really be…

Or... $11B was a terrible price to pay, and their desire to recoup their shitty investment still shouldn't be allowed to bankrupt people who just want to live.

It's also incredibly obtuse to call $84k a "30% premium" on raising a child. There are so many people who don't (because they can't) spend close to $245k, more that can barely pull it off, and even more that shouldn't have pharma rates kept artificially inflated on their backs.

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