Can we at least have a degree of socialism in our society?

themuffinman16 · September 2015

Has anyone heard of the price hike of the HIV medication? This 32 year old CEO raised the price of this life-saving medication up 5000%. It is absolutely ridiculous! The price of the medication went from $13.50 cents for each pill to $750 per pill. When asked why he raised the price of the pill, he said he was being smart and had to make the medication profitable. During the interview, the CEO said he felt he was being altruistic, and that money was going to research to make new medications or to better the medications that all ready exist,

This is just wrong on so many levels. We can raise minimum wage all we want, but people like this guy are just going to raise profit margins by raising prices ridiculously.Then, we are right back to where we started... not being able to afford anything. It just sickens me that some people feel that whatever millions they have will never be enough. Meanwhile, people could die without life-saving medication, because this man has to make it prohibitively expensive. On my local news, last night, a man with HIV said he pays $3,000 a month for his HIV meds. I wish the politicians would tackle insurance companies and drug companies in the primaries, but I know they never will. Sorry for my vent, just watching the news really upset me, knowing that people could die because they can't afford their health. The CEO has since lowered the price, due to the outrage of the country, but what is the new price? It did not say that this drug went back to the original price. I am guessing, it is still out of reach for some people. What are your opinions, ladies?

lyndausvi · September 2015

I saw that story a few days ago. It's simply crazy.

I don't know what the answer is honestly.

My dad was a project manager for a pharmaceutical company. He built MULTI-BILLION dollar plants to produce a medication that has been approved. To even get it to that point costs millions or billions more. So I get the need for the higher costs at least in the beginning. It's a vicious cycle that without profits companies do not have the money to create more medications Round and round it goes.

Now it's my understanding that the pharmaceutical company has a lock on the product for 20 years with an option for another 5 years, then it can go generic. I get. This allows the company that spent all the time and research to recoup their costs.

Now where things get confusing. So the company that created the drug sell the rights for a shit ton of money. Okay, pretty gross, but they are a business. Well if you are the buying company you are not going to spend $55M on something and not at least get your money back. So they up the costs. Now I think from $13.50 to $750 is beyond ridiculous, but at the same time the company selling's costs are much lower then the buying companies costs.

Think about it, Let's say you bought a home for $100K. You can rent that place for $1000 and still make money. Now let's say it's now worth $1M and you sell. The new owners have no choice but to raise the rent to cover their own costs.

I'm not sure the answer. Do we tell drug companies they are never allowed to sell the rights to a drug? Do we tell them they can only sell the rights up to a certain percentage? The new company has to increase the amount of time to recoup the costs of buying the drug's rights. I.E it seems like this guy is trying to make a profit in say a year. Do we make them turn a profit in 10 years? Do we make drug companies gov't agencies?

All I know I'm disgusted at both the selling and buying companies putting people in this position at all. If the selling company didn't sell the drug's rights for $55M, then the new company would not have to charge so much to recoup the costs.

It's just a vicious cycle and the general public are the ones who get hurt out of the deal.

sal2015 · September 2015

That price hike was for a pill to treat toxoplasmosis, not HIV. Either way, it's terrible. I did just read an article stating that the hike would be rescinded, at least in part.

themuffinman16 · September 2015

It irritates me that this kid is all about making money and can care little to nothing about the patient. This drug has been on the market for 62 years. It costs 1 dollar to produce. I know that there are several other factors to pricing medication. However, it seems to me that he bought the rights to this medication, just to monopolize it and jack up the prices. To me, a pharmaceutical company should be made up of doctors who have their patients best interest at heart. This kid has no idea what he is doing. I understand he wants to make a profit, but trying to get rich overnight is not how you do it, especially when lives are at stake.

Now, several doctors and pharmacies can't even stock it on their shelves because the cost is too expensive. I see Hillary has taken on this topic. I am hoping she has answers, and doesn't just use it as a tool to get elected (like most politicians do).

@lyndausvi, I like that you are a problem solver, and have posed a few questions as to how best to fix this problem. I hope our next president will look into drug companies and make them less costly to the consumer.

themuffinman16 · September 2015

sal2015 said:

That price hike was for a pill to treat toxoplasmosis, not HIV. Either way, it's terrible. I did just read an article stating that the hike would be rescinded, at least in part.

Toxoplasmosis affects people with HIV, cancer patients, and can affect pregnant women. Anyone with a compromised immune system can be at risk when exposed to the parasite that causes the infection.

lyndausvi · September 2015

themuffinman16 said:

It irritates me that this kid is all about making money and can care little to nothing about the patient. This drug has been on the market for 62 years. It costs 1 dollar to produce. I know that there are several other factors to pricing medication. However, it seems to me that he bought the rights to this medication, just to monopolize it and jack up the prices. To me, a pharmaceutical company should be made up of doctors who have their patients best interest at heart. This kid has no idea what he is doing. I understand he wants to make a profit, but trying to get rich overnight is not how you do it, especially when lives are at stake.
Now, several doctors and pharmacies can't even stock it on their shelves because the cost is too expensive. I see Hillary has taken on this topic. I am hoping she has answers, and doesn't just use it as a tool to get elected (like most politicians do).
@lyndausvi, I like that you are a problem solver, and have posed a few questions as to how best to fix this problem. I hope our next president will look into drug companies and make them less costly to the consumer.

I think the new owner is gross, but what about the company that sold the drug for $55M? They are just as bad.

themuffinman16 · September 2015

I agree. Anyone who is going to sell old prescriptions for that price had to know how the new owner was going to recoup that cost.

madamerwin · September 2015

I get pharmaceutical companies needing to make a profit, but raising the price by 7000% is absolutely ludicrous. Plus, I just don't like the guy's face, it looks really punchable.

lyndausvi · September 2015

tfmrserwin said:

I get pharmaceutical companies needing to make a profit, but raising the price by 7000% is absolutely ludicrous. Plus, I just don't like the guy's face, it looks really punchable.

So true. He looks like an ass. And apparently has had other issues with companies he has run.

At $13.50 they would have to sell 4,074,074+ pills in order to make $55M. That is just revenue, not taking out production and marketing costs. I wonder how many pills are sold a year?

At $750 a pop they only need to sell 73,333+ to make $55M, again in revenue, so that doesn't take into consideration production and other costs.

Again, I'm not sure what other costs there are or how many they sell a year, but it seems like he wanted a rate of return pretty fucking fast at the expense of sick people who need the drug.

[Deleted User] · September 2015

This is already happening with cancer cures I think. My fiance is a Pharmacy Tech and was telling me that because the money is not in the cure but in the treatment, pharmaceutical companies have simply made the few cure drugs completely unaffordable to keep them off the market.

Sad, sad, sad.

P.S. If you're truly upset with Pharmaceutical Greed, look into Bernie Sanders for POTUS.

princessleia22 · September 2015

lyndausvi said:

show previous quotes

tfmrserwin said:

I get pharmaceutical companies needing to make a profit, but raising the price by 7000% is absolutely ludicrous. Plus, I just don't like the guy's face, it looks really punchable.

So true. He looks like an ass. And apparently has had other issues with companies he has run.

At $13.50 they would have to sell 4,074,074+ pills in order to make $55M. That is just revenue, not taking out production and marketing costs. I wonder how many pills are sold a year?

At $750 a pop they only need to sell 73,333+ to make $55M, again in revenue, so that doesn't take into consideration production and other costs.

Again, I'm not sure what other costs there are or how many they sell a year, but it seems like he wanted a rate of return pretty fucking fast at the expense of sick people who need the drug.

I'm not sure how many they sell, but they did say it's a low used drug. The new owner claims the $750 cost is in line with other rarely used specialty medications. Because these medications aren't sold in huge quantity, they need to have higher costs to cover the development & productions costs. And supposedly any profit made on the increased cost would go toward research & development on better medications, not profit. At least, that is his justification for it, right or wrong.

I can kind of see his point in that, but it's still a super extreme increase. He did now say that he will lower the costs back down to break-even or minimal profit. They haven't stated what price that will be yet, but are supposed to review that over the next couple weeks to determine new pricing. But, like you said, if he paid $55M for it, they probably aren't going to cover their costs at $13.50 a pill... there will still likely be a significant increase in cost.

MyNameIsNot · September 2015

I honestly don't see how you can get around this and still keep the for-profit healthcare model. As long as there are profits to be made from medications, pharmaceutical companies are going to act in the best interest of their bottom line and their stockholders, not their customers'. We can demonize big pharma, but that's what businesses are supposed to do.

I don't think the majority is ready to accept universal healthcare yet, but I do think taking the profit out of the model is the only way to shift the focus onto the patient and away from the profit.

novella1186 · September 2015

princessleia22 said:

show previous quotes

lyndausvi said:

tfmrserwin said:

I get pharmaceutical companies needing to make a profit, but raising the price by 7000% is absolutely ludicrous. Plus, I just don't like the guy's face, it looks really punchable.

So true. He looks like an ass. And apparently has had other issues with companies he has run.

At $13.50 they would have to sell 4,074,074+ pills in order to make $55M. That is just revenue, not taking out production and marketing costs. I wonder how many pills are sold a year?

At $750 a pop they only need to sell 73,333+ to make $55M, again in revenue, so that doesn't take into consideration production and other costs.

Again, I'm not sure what other costs there are or how many they sell a year, but it seems like he wanted a rate of return pretty fucking fast at the expense of sick people who need the drug.

I'm not sure how many they sell, but they did say it's a low used drug. The new owner claims the $750 cost is in line with other rarely used specialty medications. Because these medications aren't sold in huge quantity, they need to have higher costs to cover the development & productions costs. And supposedly any profit made on the increased cost would go toward research & development on better medications, not profit. At least, that is his justification for it, right or wrong.

I can kind of see his point in that, but it's still a super extreme increase. He did now say that he will lower the costs back down to break-even or minimal profit. They haven't stated what price that will be yet, but are supposed to review that over the next couple weeks to determine new pricing. But, like you said, if he paid $55M for it, they probably aren't going to cover their costs at $13.50 a pill... there will still likely be a significant increase in cost.

What I think is really interesting is that healthcare is going through some major changes behind the scenes. The way things are billed and who covers the costs is one of the things changing, and of course doctors are trying to push that back onto the manufacturers. My company and all of our competitors are keeping an eye out, because that means it falls back on us, while one hospital is billing $1,500 for a procedure and the hospital down the street is billing $8,000 for the same exact procedure.

I think what this guy did is ridiculous, but I also think medical spending in the US across the board is totally out of control. On average, a procedure in the US involving a product that we make (just as one example) will cost about $40,000. In the UK, same product and same procedure is on average $15,000 which is why a lot of our patients fly over there just for a surgery.

If pharmaceutical companies have free reign to increase prices thousands of a percent at a time, who does that fall back on? The company is getting the profit, but what if the patient that requires the drug is on Medicaid? Who's covering the cost? Or will they be denied the drug? (I honestly don't get how all that works, but I think it's fucked up).

While hospitals and doctors are pushing for the cost savings to fall back on manufacturers, does that mean manufacturers can exponentially jack up the price on certain things to offset that?

lyndausvi · September 2015

princessleia22 said:

show previous quotes

lyndausvi said:

tfmrserwin said:

I get pharmaceutical companies needing to make a profit, but raising the price by 7000% is absolutely ludicrous. Plus, I just don't like the guy's face, it looks really punchable.

So true. He looks like an ass. And apparently has had other issues with companies he has run.

At $13.50 they would have to sell 4,074,074+ pills in order to make $55M. That is just revenue, not taking out production and marketing costs. I wonder how many pills are sold a year?

At $750 a pop they only need to sell 73,333+ to make $55M, again in revenue, so that doesn't take into consideration production and other costs.

Again, I'm not sure what other costs there are or how many they sell a year, but it seems like he wanted a rate of return pretty fucking fast at the expense of sick people who need the drug.

I'm not sure how many they sell, but they did say it's a low used drug. The new owner claims the $750 cost is in line with other rarely used specialty medications. Because these medications aren't sold in huge quantity, they need to have higher costs to cover the development & productions costs. And supposedly any profit made on the increased cost would go toward research & development on better medications, not profit. At least, that is his justification for it, right or wrong.

I can kind of see his point in that, but it's still a super extreme increase. He did now say that he will lower the costs back down to break-even or minimal profit. They haven't stated what price that will be yet, but are supposed to review that over the next couple weeks to determine new pricing. But, like you said, if he paid $55M for it, they probably aren't going to cover their costs at $13.50 a pill... there will still likely be a significant increase in cost.

I researched it a little more and it's claimed the drug only has about $5m in revenue at the old rate. So it's called an orphan drug. Orphan drugs often cost a lot more per pill.

kimmiinthemitten · September 2015

"For instance, according to a 2013 report released by the International Federation of Health Plans, Nexium – the “purple pill” commonly prescribed for acid reflux – cost more than $200 for U.S. patients in 2013 and only $60 in Switzerland, the next-most-expensive price in the world for the same drug. In the Netherlands, it cost $23."

Yet somehow all these pharma companies sell the exact same drug to patients in other countries for far less than they sell them here. I'm all for people making money, but when the product you sell benefits the greater good for literally all of human kind, there need to be caps on how much you profit from those products. Trickle down clearly is not a thing.

@Feeleytobe I love you more and more each post;)

STARMOON44 · September 2015

FeeleyToBe said:
This is already happening with cancer cures I think. My fiance is a Pharmacy Tech and was telling me that because the money is not in the cure but in the treatment, pharmaceutical companies have simply made the few cure drugs completely unaffordable to keep them off the market.

Sad, sad, sad.

P.S. If you're truly upset with Pharmaceutical Greed, look into Bernie Sanders for POTUS.

Really? I don't buy it at all that there are drugs that cure cancer that are not available for purchase at any price.

[Deleted User] · September 2015

kimmiandkoley said:

"For instance, according to a 2013 report released by the International Federation of Health Plans, Nexium – the “purple pill” commonly prescribed for acid reflux – cost more than $200 for U.S. patients in 2013 and only $60 in Switzerland, the next-most-expensive price in the world for the same drug. In the Netherlands, it cost $23."

Yet somehow all these pharma companies sell the exact same drug to patients in other countries for far less than they sell them here. I'm all for people making money, but when the product you sell benefits the greater good for literally all of human kind, there need to be caps on how much you profit from those products. Trickle down clearly is not a thing.

@Feeleytobe I love you more and more each post;)

Back at ya @Kimmiandkoley

kkitkat79 · September 2015

lyndausvi said:

Now it's my understanding that the pharmaceutical company has a lock on the product for 20 years with an option for another 5 years, then it can go generic. I get. This allows the company that spent all the time and research to recoup their costs.

This is a fallacy promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. The popular claim is that R&D is so expensive that without monopolistic rights there would be no innovation. Forget for a second that it flies right in the face of any economic theory regarding the effect of monopoly on a market (ever-decreasing quality and innovation together with ever-increasing profits), there is no empirical evidence that lack of monopoly leads to elimination of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. As an example take Italy before and after 1978 when patents for medicines were introduced. From an article I'll source below:

"The Italian pharmaceutical industry did not suffer particularly until 1978. On the one hand, foreign companies holding patents abroad entered the Italian market, via direct investment and the establishment of local production units, in order to protect the market share of their own products. On the other hand, the possibility of freely imitating products patented elsewhere favored the creation of a large number of Italian imitative firms, which improved upon existing products and, at the same time, allowed for their diffusion at much lower prices. In spite of this, the forty largest Italian firms did not simply imitate but developed their own products and innovated extensively, either by using existing products as ingredients (25%) or by using products which were not patentable or with expired patents (31%)."

More importantly, before 1978 Italian pharmaceutical industry was characterized by the presence of a large number of small and medium sized independent firms. The market was competitive.

On the other hand:

"After 1978, industry concentration proceeded rapidly: the total number of independent firms went from 464 in 1976 to 390 in 1980 and 335 in 1985. During the same period, no concentration of the productive activity took place in the pharmaceutical industry of the other large western countries. The Italian pharmaceutical industry, in the meanwhile, has lost market share at a constant pace both nationally and worldwide; the Italian pharmaceutical industry is, in fact, practically disappearing, together with the most valuable and patentable drugs it did not invent since 1978."

Let's also look at the relative share of pharmaceutical industry in R&D and how efficient it is it:

"Holding output of pharmaceutical products constant, private companies tend to spend twice as much as public medical research centers to come up with new drugs. As one might suspect, the additional costs of the private drug monopolists are mostly legal and advertising costs: the first to get patents and defend them, the second to convince doctors to prescribe “their drug” instead of the alternative, most often a generic and cheaper alternative.

The pharmaceutical industry is also less essential to medical research than their lobbyists might have you believe. In 1995, the U.S. spent about $25 billion on biomedical research. About $11.5 billion came from the Federal government, with another $3.6 billion of academic not funded by the feds. Industry spent about $10 billion. However, industry R&D is eligible for a tax credit of about 20%, so the government also picked up about $2 billion of the cost of “industry” research. So private industry pays for only about 1/3rd of biomedical R&D. By way of contrast, outside of the biomedical area, private industry pays for about 2/3rds of R&D"

Source

I know the numbers are old, but I don't think they do not reflect the current situation. If anything it is probably worse as evident by the ability of a firm to raise prices by 5000%. That it precisely what a monopoly right enables firms to do.

There is no need for more socialism. There is plenty of socialism going around as it is. The pharmaceutical industry is a great example.

A more recent study on effects of global patent protection in pharmaceuticals:

"Under the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, the World Trade Organization members are required to enforce product patents for pharmaceuticals. In this paper we empirically investigate the welfare effects of this requirement on developing countries using data for the fluoroquinolones subsegment of the systemic anti-bacterials segment of the Indian pharmaceuticals market. Our results suggest that concerns about the potential adverse welfare effects of TRIPS may have some basis. We estimate that the withdrawal of all domestic products in this subsegment is associated with substantial welfare losses to the Indian economy, even in the presence of price regulation. The overwhelming portion of this welfare loss derives from the loss of consumer welfare."

ShesSoCold · September 2015

kkitkat79 said:

show previous quotes

lyndausvi said:

Now it's my understanding that the pharmaceutical company has a lock on the product for 20 years with an option for another 5 years, then it can go generic. I get. This allows the company that spent all the time and research to recoup their costs.

This is a fallacy promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. The popular claim is that R&D is so expensive that without monopolistic rights there would be no innovation. Forget for a second that it flies right in the face of any economic theory regarding the effect of monopoly on a market (ever-decreasing quality and innovation together with ever-increasing profits), there is no empirical evidence that lack of monopoly leads to elimination of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. As an example take Italy before and after 1978 when patents for medicines were introduced. From an article I'll source below:

"The Italian pharmaceutical industry did not suffer particularly until 1978. On the one hand, foreign companies holding patents abroad entered the Italian market, via direct investment and the establishment of local production units, in order to protect the market share of their own products. On the other hand, the possibility of freely imitating products patented elsewhere favored the creation of a large number of Italian imitative firms, which improved upon existing products and, at the same time, allowed for their diffusion at much lower prices. In spite of this, the forty largest Italian firms did not simply imitate but developed their own products and innovated extensively, either by using existing products as ingredients (25%) or by using products which were not patentable or with expired patents (31%)."

More importantly, before 1978 Italian pharmaceutical industry was characterized by the presence of a large number of small and medium sized independent firms. The market was competitive.

On the other hand:

"After 1978, industry concentration proceeded rapidly: the total number of independent firms went from 464 in 1976 to 390 in 1980 and 335 in 1985. During the same period, no concentration of the productive activity took place in the pharmaceutical industry of the other large western countries. The Italian pharmaceutical industry, in the meanwhile, has lost market share at a constant pace both nationally and worldwide; the Italian pharmaceutical industry is, in fact, practically disappearing, together with the most valuable and patentable drugs it did not invent since 1978."

Let's also look at the relative share of pharmaceutical industry in R&D and how efficient it is it:

"Holding output of pharmaceutical products constant, private companies tend to spend twice as much as public medical research centers to come up with new drugs. As one might suspect, the additional costs of the private drug monopolists are mostly legal and advertising costs: the first to get patents and defend them, the second to convince doctors to prescribe “their drug” instead of the alternative, most often a generic and cheaper alternative.

The pharmaceutical industry is also less essential to medical research than their lobbyists might have you believe. In 1995, the U.S. spent about $25 billion on biomedical research. About $11.5 billion came from the Federal government, with another $3.6 billion of academic not funded by the feds. Industry spent about $10 billion. However, industry R&D is eligible for a tax credit of about 20%, so the government also picked up about $2 billion of the cost of “industry” research. So private industry pays for only about 1/3rd of biomedical R&D. By way of contrast, outside of the biomedical area, private industry pays for about 2/3rds of R&D"

Source

I know the numbers are old, but I don't think they do not reflect the current situation. If anything it is probably worse as evident by the ability of a firm to raise prices by 5000%. That it precisely what a monopoly right enables firms to do.

There is no need for more socialism. There is plenty of socialism going around as it is. The pharmaceutical industry is a great example.

A more recent study on effects of global patent protection in pharmaceuticals:

"Under the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, the World Trade Organization members are required to enforce product patents for pharmaceuticals. In this paper we empirically investigate the welfare effects of this requirement on developing countries using data for the fluoroquinolones subsegment of the systemic anti-bacterials segment of the Indian pharmaceuticals market. Our results suggest that concerns about the potential adverse welfare effects of TRIPS may have some basis. We estimate that the withdrawal of all domestic products in this subsegment is associated with substantial welfare losses to the Indian economy, even in the presence of price regulation. The overwhelming portion of this welfare loss derives from the loss of consumer welfare."

Oh good, I was hoping you'd come here to comment.

themuffinman16 · September 2015

ShesSoCold said:

show previous quotes

kkitkat79 said:

lyndausvi said:

Now it's my understanding that the pharmaceutical company has a lock on the product for 20 years with an option for another 5 years, then it can go generic. I get. This allows the company that spent all the time and research to recoup their costs.

This is a fallacy promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. The popular claim is that R&D is so expensive that without monopolistic rights there would be no innovation. Forget for a second that it flies right in the face of any economic theory regarding the effect of monopoly on a market (ever-decreasing quality and innovation together with ever-increasing profits), there is no empirical evidence that lack of monopoly leads to elimination of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. As an example take Italy before and after 1978 when patents for medicines were introduced. From an article I'll source below:

"The Italian pharmaceutical industry did not suffer particularly until 1978. On the one hand, foreign companies holding patents abroad entered the Italian market, via direct investment and the establishment of local production units, in order to protect the market share of their own products. On the other hand, the possibility of freely imitating products patented elsewhere favored the creation of a large number of Italian imitative firms, which improved upon existing products and, at the same time, allowed for their diffusion at much lower prices. In spite of this, the forty largest Italian firms did not simply imitate but developed their own products and innovated extensively, either by using existing products as ingredients (25%) or by using products which were not patentable or with expired patents (31%)."

More importantly, before 1978 Italian pharmaceutical industry was characterized by the presence of a large number of small and medium sized independent firms. The market was competitive.

On the other hand:

"After 1978, industry concentration proceeded rapidly: the total number of independent firms went from 464 in 1976 to 390 in 1980 and 335 in 1985. During the same period, no concentration of the productive activity took place in the pharmaceutical industry of the other large western countries. The Italian pharmaceutical industry, in the meanwhile, has lost market share at a constant pace both nationally and worldwide; the Italian pharmaceutical industry is, in fact, practically disappearing, together with the most valuable and patentable drugs it did not invent since 1978."

Let's also look at the relative share of pharmaceutical industry in R&D and how efficient it is it:

"Holding output of pharmaceutical products constant, private companies tend to spend twice as much as public medical research centers to come up with new drugs. As one might suspect, the additional costs of the private drug monopolists are mostly legal and advertising costs: the first to get patents and defend them, the second to convince doctors to prescribe “their drug” instead of the alternative, most often a generic and cheaper alternative.

The pharmaceutical industry is also less essential to medical research than their lobbyists might have you believe. In 1995, the U.S. spent about $25 billion on biomedical research. About $11.5 billion came from the Federal government, with another $3.6 billion of academic not funded by the feds. Industry spent about $10 billion. However, industry R&D is eligible for a tax credit of about 20%, so the government also picked up about $2 billion of the cost of “industry” research. So private industry pays for only about 1/3rd of biomedical R&D. By way of contrast, outside of the biomedical area, private industry pays for about 2/3rds of R&D"

Source

I know the numbers are old, but I don't think they do not reflect the current situation. If anything it is probably worse as evident by the ability of a firm to raise prices by 5000%. That it precisely what a monopoly right enables firms to do.

There is no need for more socialism. There is plenty of socialism going around as it is. The pharmaceutical industry is a great example.

A more recent study on effects of global patent protection in pharmaceuticals:

"Under the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, the World Trade Organization members are required to enforce product patents for pharmaceuticals. In this paper we empirically investigate the welfare effects of this requirement on developing countries using data for the fluoroquinolones subsegment of the systemic anti-bacterials segment of the Indian pharmaceuticals market. Our results suggest that concerns about the potential adverse welfare effects of TRIPS may have some basis. We estimate that the withdrawal of all domestic products in this subsegment is associated with substantial welfare losses to the Indian economy, even in the presence of price regulation. The overwhelming portion of this welfare loss derives from the loss of consumer welfare."

Oh good, I was hoping you'd come here to comment.

Lmao. I was just thinking this.

[Deleted User] · September 2015

STARMOON44 said:

show previous quotes
This is already happening with cancer cures I think. My fiance is a Pharmacy Tech and was telling me that because the money is not in the cure but in the treatment, pharmaceutical companies have simply made the few cure drugs completely unaffordable to keep them off the market.

Sad, sad, sad.

P.S. If you're truly upset with Pharmaceutical Greed, look into Bernie Sanders for POTUS.
Really? I don't buy it at all that there are drugs that cure cancer that are not available for purchase at any price.

I'll ask him for more info as I'm pretty sure it was him telling me about it, but I think it was called DCA (I don't know the long form name)- maybe CAD? They have done a bunch of tests with it and found that it kills lung, breast and brain cancer cells and leaves the healthy cells alone. The kicker is DCA doesn't require a patent, and w/o a patent, pharma companies doen't want to make it because there's no money in it. That begs the question why maybe independent labs aren't picking this up and running with it, of course.

I'm pretty sure he had also told me about another that they did develop that could be patented, and did and purposely over-priced it so that it wasn't sell-able. He's at work so I'll update once I can talk to him again.

novella1186 · September 2015

FeeleyToBe said:

show previous quotes

STARMOON44 said:

This is already happening with cancer cures I think. My fiance is a Pharmacy Tech and was telling me that because the money is not in the cure but in the treatment, pharmaceutical companies have simply made the few cure drugs completely unaffordable to keep them off the market.

Sad, sad, sad.

P.S. If you're truly upset with Pharmaceutical Greed, look into Bernie Sanders for POTUS.
Really? I don't buy it at all that there are drugs that cure cancer that are not available for purchase at any price.

I'll ask him for more info as I'm pretty sure it was him telling me about it, but I think it was called DCA (I don't know the long form name)- maybe CAD? They have done a bunch of tests with it and found that it kills lung, breast and brain cancer cells and leaves the healthy cells alone. The kicker is DCA doesn't require a patent, and w/o a patent, pharma companies doen't want to make it because there's no money in it. That begs the question why maybe independent labs aren't picking this up and running with it, of course.

I'm pretty sure he had also told me about another that they did develop that could be patented, and did and purposely over-priced it so that it wasn't sell-able. He's at work so I'll update once I can talk to him again.

I think I may have heard of this? I might be thinking of something different, but earlier this year I read an article about a new breakthrough where they discovered molecules that could do this, but it was only in animal testing so far. It hadn't made it to human trials yet, so there's no way it would/could be available on the market yet. It usually takes years for it to go that far.

ETA Here's an article I found on it

lyndausvi · September 2015

kkitkat79 said:

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lyndausvi said:

Now it's my understanding that the pharmaceutical company has a lock on the product for 20 years with an option for another 5 years, then it can go generic. I get. This allows the company that spent all the time and research to recoup their costs.

This is a fallacy promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. The popular claim is that R&D is so expensive that without monopolistic rights there would be no innovation. Forget for a second that it flies right in the face of any economic theory regarding the effect of monopoly on a market (ever-decreasing quality and innovation together with ever-increasing profits), there is no empirical evidence that lack of monopoly leads to elimination of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. As an example take Italy before and after 1978 when patents for medicines were introduced. From an article I'll source below:

"The Italian pharmaceutical industry did not suffer particularly until 1978. On the one hand, foreign companies holding patents abroad entered the Italian market, via direct investment and the establishment of local production units, in order to protect the market share of their own products. On the other hand, the possibility of freely imitating products patented elsewhere favored the creation of a large number of Italian imitative firms, which improved upon existing products and, at the same time, allowed for their diffusion at much lower prices. In spite of this, the forty largest Italian firms did not simply imitate but developed their own products and innovated extensively, either by using existing products as ingredients (25%) or by using products which were not patentable or with expired patents (31%)."

More importantly, before 1978 Italian pharmaceutical industry was characterized by the presence of a large number of small and medium sized independent firms. The market was competitive.

On the other hand:

"After 1978, industry concentration proceeded rapidly: the total number of independent firms went from 464 in 1976 to 390 in 1980 and 335 in 1985. During the same period, no concentration of the productive activity took place in the pharmaceutical industry of the other large western countries. The Italian pharmaceutical industry, in the meanwhile, has lost market share at a constant pace both nationally and worldwide; the Italian pharmaceutical industry is, in fact, practically disappearing, together with the most valuable and patentable drugs it did not invent since 1978."

Let's also look at the relative share of pharmaceutical industry in R&D and how efficient it is it:

"Holding output of pharmaceutical products constant, private companies tend to spend twice as much as public medical research centers to come up with new drugs. As one might suspect, the additional costs of the private drug monopolists are mostly legal and advertising costs: the first to get patents and defend them, the second to convince doctors to prescribe “their drug” instead of the alternative, most often a generic and cheaper alternative.

The pharmaceutical industry is also less essential to medical research than their lobbyists might have you believe. In 1995, the U.S. spent about $25 billion on biomedical research. About $11.5 billion came from the Federal government, with another $3.6 billion of academic not funded by the feds. Industry spent about $10 billion. However, industry R&D is eligible for a tax credit of about 20%, so the government also picked up about $2 billion of the cost of “industry” research. So private industry pays for only about 1/3rd of biomedical R&D. By way of contrast, outside of the biomedical area, private industry pays for about 2/3rds of R&D"

Source

I know the numbers are old, but I don't think they do not reflect the current situation. If anything it is probably worse as evident by the ability of a firm to raise prices by 5000%. That it precisely what a monopoly right enables firms to do.

There is no need for more socialism. There is plenty of socialism going around as it is. The pharmaceutical industry is a great example.

A more recent study on effects of global patent protection in pharmaceuticals:

"Under the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, the World Trade Organization members are required to enforce product patents for pharmaceuticals. In this paper we empirically investigate the welfare effects of this requirement on developing countries using data for the fluoroquinolones subsegment of the systemic anti-bacterials segment of the Indian pharmaceuticals market. Our results suggest that concerns about the potential adverse welfare effects of TRIPS may have some basis. We estimate that the withdrawal of all domestic products in this subsegment is associated with substantial welfare losses to the Indian economy, even in the presence of price regulation. The overwhelming portion of this welfare loss derives from the loss of consumer welfare."

That is all good and interesting.

However, fact is the gov't does give the pharmaceutical companies a set time to lock on a drug they developed in order to recoup development and production costs. At no time did I say it actually takes that much time to recoup costs. It's just that they are given a certain amount of time to recoup costs.

My father was the head guy who built drug plants. Some of those plants cost BILLIONS of dollars and 5+ years to build. Maybe it's not all R&D, but pharmaceutical companies indeed have start up costs after R&D in order to bring the product to the public.

[Deleted User] · September 2015

novella1186 said:

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FeeleyToBe said:

STARMOON44 said:

This is already happening with cancer cures I think. My fiance is a Pharmacy Tech and was telling me that because the money is not in the cure but in the treatment, pharmaceutical companies have simply made the few cure drugs completely unaffordable to keep them off the market.

Sad, sad, sad.

P.S. If you're truly upset with Pharmaceutical Greed, look into Bernie Sanders for POTUS.
Really? I don't buy it at all that there are drugs that cure cancer that are not available for purchase at any price.

I'll ask him for more info as I'm pretty sure it was him telling me about it, but I think it was called DCA (I don't know the long form name)- maybe CAD? They have done a bunch of tests with it and found that it kills lung, breast and brain cancer cells and leaves the healthy cells alone. The kicker is DCA doesn't require a patent, and w/o a patent, pharma companies doen't want to make it because there's no money in it. That begs the question why maybe independent labs aren't picking this up and running with it, of course.

I'm pretty sure he had also told me about another that they did develop that could be patented, and did and purposely over-priced it so that it wasn't sell-able. He's at work so I'll update once I can talk to him again.

I think I may have heard of this? I might be thinking of something different, but earlier this year I read an article about a new breakthrough where they discovered molecules that could do this, but it was only in animal testing so far. It hadn't made it to human trials yet, so there's no way it would/could be available on the market yet. It usually takes years for it to go that far.

It's possible that DCA (?) was only lab trials on animals, but I think he said it was also tested on human cells- I didn't do a bunch of follow-up research on it, just kind of listened to him talk about it, so I'm not sure.

I think he told me this about 2 years ago when he went back to get his AS in Pharmacy Tech studies; they had a class that was all about drugs in the news and such and it was a topic of discussion. I have no idea what might have happened with it in the last few years, if anything.

STARMOON44 · September 2015

FeeleyToBe said:
show previous quotes

STARMOON44 said:

FeeleyToBe said:
This is already happening with cancer cures I think. My fiance is a Pharmacy Tech and was telling me that because the money is not in the cure but in the treatment, pharmaceutical companies have simply made the few cure drugs completely unaffordable to keep them off the market.

Sad, sad, sad.

P.S. If you're truly upset with Pharmaceutical Greed, look into Bernie Sanders for POTUS.

Really? I don't buy it at all that there are drugs that cure cancer that are not available for purchase at any price.

I'll ask him for more info as I'm pretty sure it was him telling me about it, but I think it was called DCA (I don't know the long form name)- maybe CAD? They have done a bunch of tests with it and found that it kills lung, breast and brain cancer cells and leaves the healthy cells alone. The kicker is DCA doesn't require a patent, and w/o a patent, pharma companies doen't want to make it because there's no money in it. That begs the question why maybe independent labs aren't picking this up and running with it, of course.

I'm pretty sure he had also told me about another that they did develop that could be patented, and did and purposely over-priced it so that it wasn't sell-able. He's at work so I'll update once I can talk to him again.

I don't mean to be rude, but this is why we don't get medical care from pharmacy techs. There's no proof DCA works at all in humans, let alone cures cancer, and many studies show significant toxicity. This is a Snoopes type claim promoted by conspiracy theorists and fraudsters who profit off of selling it on the black market to desperate people.

kkitkat79 · September 2015

lyndausvi said:

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That is all good and interesting.

However, fact is the gov't does give the pharmaceutical companies a set time to lock on a drug they developed in order to recoup development and production costs. At no time did I say it actually takes that much time to recoup costs. It's just that they are given a certain amount of time to recoup costs.

My father was the head guy who built drug plants. Some of those plants cost BILLIONS of dollars and 5+ years to build. Maybe it's not all R&D, but pharmaceutical companies indeed have start up costs after R&D in order to bring the product to the public.

Pharmaceutical companies indeed have start up costs. However, the reason why their start-up costs are so high is the presence of a monopoly power. A monopoly does not affect just the monopolized industry, but also the industries that are directly or indirectly involved with the monopolized industry. That is why monopoly is so bad.

monkeysip · September 2015

What bothers me is how a lot of people start frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of anything socialist.

I don't think our entire society should be socialist either, BUT that doesn't mean that it's not better for the government to run SOME industries. I think there's good arguments to be made that healthcare is a public good, and therefore operates better under a single payer system. That doesn't mean that we all have to start being Marxist and calling each other comrade. But a lot of people think anything and everything socialist is the devil.

That's why even though I support Bernie Sanders on most things, I honestly don't think he could win. He's a "dirty socialist" in so many people's eyes.

kkitkat79 · September 2015

monkeysip said:

What bothers me is how a lot of people start frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of anything socialist.

I don't think our entire society should be socialist either, BUT that doesn't mean that it's not better for the government to run SOME industries. I think there's good arguments to be made that healthcare is a public good, and therefore operates better under a single payer system. That doesn't mean that we all have to start being Marxist and calling each other comrade. But a lot of people think anything and everything socialist is the devil.

That's why even though I support Bernie Sanders on most things, I honestly don't think he could win. He's a "dirty socialist" in so many people's eyes.

I think you are right in that people often have an almost Pavlovian response to the word socialism. I also think that the word is often misused to mean something other than what it actually means.

That said, I had first hand experience with socialism. It was not good. I can't think of one example where a publicly-run industry outperforms a free-entry privately-run industry.

monkeysip · September 2015

I would argue that healthcare is better in countries like Canada with socialized healthcare. Americans have poorer health than many other developed nations despite the fact that we pay so much more for healthcare per capita.

STARMOON44 · September 2015

kkitkat79 said:
show previous quotes

monkeysip said:

What bothers me is how a lot of people start frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of anything socialist.

I don't think our entire society should be socialist either, BUT that doesn't mean that it's not better for the government to run SOME industries. I think there's good arguments to be made that healthcare is a public good, and therefore operates better under a single payer system. That doesn't mean that we all have to start being Marxist and calling each other comrade. But a lot of people think anything and everything socialist is the devil.

That's why even though I support Bernie Sanders on most things, I honestly don't think he could win. He's a "dirty socialist" in so many people's eyes.

I think you are right in that people often have an almost Pavlovian response to the word socialism. I also think that the word is often misused to mean something other than what it actually means.

That said, I had first hand experience with socialism. It was not good. I can't think of one example where a publicly-run industry outperforms a free-entry privately-run industry.

In Russia? That was communism. Or Israel? Or Canada?

The NHS certainly outperforms our health care industry if you care about poor people not dying for lack of basic care.

princessleia22 · September 2015

kimmiandkoley said:

"For instance, according to a 2013 report released by the International Federation of Health Plans, Nexium – the “purple pill” commonly prescribed for acid reflux – cost more than $200 for U.S. patients in 2013 and only $60 in Switzerland, the next-most-expensive price in the world for the same drug. In the Netherlands, it cost $23."

Yet somehow all these pharma companies sell the exact same drug to patients in other countries for far less than they sell them here. I'm all for people making money, but when the product you sell benefits the greater good for literally all of human kind, there need to be caps on how much you profit from those products. Trickle down clearly is not a thing.

@Feeleytobe I love you more and more each post;)

My husband has a medication that was costing him $100 a month ... for a generic. He went to a new doctor that recommended a mail-order pharmacy out of Canada... the pills actually got mailed from India, though... but, it costs him $20 a month now.

My big glaring example that pisses me off with the unfairness of medical costs, is the insured vs. uninsured rates on everything. A few years ago I had about a 6-month lapse in medical insurance. During that time I needed to get a physical exam & standard blood work, in order to continue refilling one of my necessary medications. The exam cost was minimal and I figured that the amount I had typically seen on my bills for blood work was around $50. Well, then my non-insured bills came... it cost over $600 for the same lab tests that had cost me $50 the year before. Just because I didn't have an insurance negotiated rate for the tests. Of course you get uninsured skipping out on paying if you gouge them like that! If you charged them same cost as insured people, there may be higher chance of payment. Of course, that may not apply the same with large bills for surgery or whatnot... some of those costs are so high that it's impossible to pay without insurance.

Can we at least have a degree of socialism in our society?

Re: Can we at least have a degree of socialism in our society?

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