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Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

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Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#61

Post by quietbritishjim »

arpinum wrote: post #45
quietbritishjim wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please back up such an unlikely sounding claim with several excellent sources. Here in the UK, there is exactly one layer: the NHS. It negotiates prices directly with drug suppliers, and as the sole buyer (monopsony) is able to get a great deal. It also sets the prices paid by consumers (the prescription price), which is a flat price charged for all drugs (yes really all of them) and is currently £9.15 (about 11 USD)…

Drugs are more streamlined, but most of the NHS looks a lot like the US system. There are 8 major private electronic health systems, and many have not signed interoperability pledges. 145 CCGs. Foundation Trusts, remember just 10 years ago GP Practices would become part. Quasi-private GP Practices. Mergers going on every year (195 CCGs to 145 last year). Funding comes out of a myriad of mystery buckets (winter fundin…

The NHS employs about 1.4 million people (and I don't think that includes GP practices). Of course an organisation that big is going to have quite a bit of structure. I never intended to dispute that.

I was disputing that specifically drug purchasing is a "racket" with "more layers" the US system, which is what the parent comment claimed. None of the organisations or organisational units that you mention have anything to do with drug price negotiation, so I don't see what they have to do with the conversation.

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#62

Post by RobertoG »

kenhwang wrote: post #50
hkt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK we pay a fraction of what companies in the US do. See also, our nightmarish trade negotiations with the US: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/01/nhs-drugs-b... Not a scholarly article, intentionally. I wanted to give a flavour of the existential (to our health system) nature of the problem of US style drug pricing. There's also the small matter of pricing varying highly by country. Another more…

Europe is one of the primary reasons US drug pricing is so messed up. Many European countries negotiate drug pricing on cost to manufacturer (practically nothing) with a negotiated slim profit margin. Then the drug companies just offload the rest of the R&D cost onto the US consumer. But, almost the entire cost of a drug is in the R&D. Imagine if the rest of the world only paid for CPUs based on the per unit cost of…

So, are you saying that the European countries should stop being so selfish and stop negotiating collectively to get better prizes?

Would not be the logic solution that the USA started negotiating as a block too?

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#63

Post by timwaagh »

udba wrote: post #7

They 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…

Read it. They dont make the drug for developing nations. they let generics do that, presumably because it would be bad to try to prevent it (if possible at all). i think it mostly makes sense. but it does show they are afraid of negotiating with governments which is why usa is getting punished for being all private.

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#64

Post by sam_lowry_ »

kenhwang wrote: post #23
trowawee wrote: post #13

American 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.

This ~$2B is an estimate that factors in the positive feedback loop high prices create.I'd expect minimal costs to achieve the same results to be one to two orders of magnitude less.

P.S. I worked for J&J once, seen their inefficiencies first-hand.

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#65

Post by tonyedgecombe »

supergirl wrote: post #11
hasperdi wrote: post #9

What 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...

not sure if totally accurate but if it is then it serves the rest of the world right for playing nice with the US while the US screws them over anytime it is convenient

I'm not sure there is much the rest of the world can do given that Gilead is an American corporation.

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#66

Post by nix23 »

flumpcakes wrote: post #22
nix23 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

>Very few people have private health care in Europe, at least in the UK

In Europe at least in Switzerland quite many have private health care (the price difference is quite small because the obligatory insurance is tremendously high already), and if you think 'we' are rich..you are wrong.

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#67

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lend000 wrote: post #34
hasperdi wrote: post #9

What 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...

I wonder if this will indirectly lead people to start thinking about whether socialized medical systems stifle innovation and make the systems reliant on innovative "capitalist" economies.

Pharmaceuticals is a big part of the UK economy where we have "socialised" health care.

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#68

Post by kenhwang »

flumpcakes wrote: post #57
kenhwang wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is one of the primary reasons US drug pricing is so messed up. Many European countries negotiate drug pricing on cost to manufacturer (practically nothing) with a negotiated slim profit margin. Then the drug companies just offload the rest of the R&D cost onto the US consumer. But, almost the entire cost of a drug is in the R&D. Imagine if the rest of the world only paid for CPUs based on the per unit cost of…

You're subsidising paying other Americans extremely high salaries. You're also subsidising share holders and C-level people's luxury lifestyle. The same drug wouldn't cost $2b to create in any other country. It's not Europe's fault you treat basic healthcare like any other business to make money from.

If that were actually the case, Europe should've had a huge competitive advantage in drug development and priced the majority American drug companies out of business. Isn't anywhere close to happening, is it?

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#69

Post by DanBC »

kenhwang wrote: post #50
hkt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK we pay a fraction of what companies in the US do. See also, our nightmarish trade negotiations with the US: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/01/nhs-drugs-b... Not a scholarly article, intentionally. I wanted to give a flavour of the existential (to our health system) nature of the problem of US style drug pricing. There's also the small matter of pricing varying highly by country. Another more…

Europe is one of the primary reasons US drug pricing is so messed up. Many European countries negotiate drug pricing on cost to manufacturer (practically nothing) with a negotiated slim profit margin. Then the drug companies just offload the rest of the R&D cost onto the US consumer. But, almost the entire cost of a drug is in the R&D. Imagine if the rest of the world only paid for CPUs based on the per unit cost of…

> Then the drug companies just offload the rest of the R&D cost onto the US consumer. But, almost the entire cost of a drug is in the R&D.

How much do drug companies spend on advertising in EU vs US?

Re: Open Letter from Gilead CEO: Remdesivir Pricing

#70

Post by kenhwang »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #64
kenhwang wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It typically costs ~$2B to develop a new drug. Taxpayer contributions are practically negligible.

This ~$2B is an estimate that factors in the positive feedback loop high prices create.I'd expect minimal costs to achieve the same results to be one to two orders of magnitude less. P.S. I worked for J&J once, seen their inefficiencies first-hand.

I briefly worked for GSK. It's not like the inefficiencies are limited to only US companies because they can charge more. Nor have I seen the public sector run any more efficiently or effectively (and it's often worse). The reality is that it takes a very large organization to develop a drug and large orgs tend to be run inefficiently.
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