You might have some copyrite infringement issues with this guy.
Posted on 06/21/2006 4:49:02 PM PDT by paudio
NEW YORK - It's a novel approach in the long battle between brand name drugs and their generic rivals: Merck & Co. is slashing the price of its cholesterol drug Zocor so low for one insurance plan that members will actually pay less for the original pills than for the generic.
That tactic has some consumer advocates fearing the practice will spark a movement among Big Pharma, compounding other pressures they fear will weaken the generic industry and compromise the country's source of low-cost drugs.
Under the deal, members of UnitedHealth Group Inc. will pay around $10 for a month's supply of brand name Zocor and $40 for a generic after the drug loses patent protection on Friday. Both Merck and UnitedHealth say the arrangement demonstrates how market competition drives down costs, and that's good for patients.
Consumer advocates typically cheer lower prices but in this instance they worry that a short term benefit for patients will ultimately result in long term problems. They say moves such as Merck's undermine generic companies' chances to generate the profits that fuel their ability to conduct research and challenge drug company patents — eventually resulting in fewer cheap medicines.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
My heart medicine [rythmol] has been generic for years. You know what it costs without insurance?
$280 per month brand name
$230-260 per month generic
Aetna makes me pay $20 if I get the generic. How much do you think Aetna is paying the pharmacy for the generic? They certainly aren't paying any $200+. It wouldn't pay to insure me.
Shell games/smoke and mirrors, there is so much cost shifting going on, no one really knows what anything costs in the medical industry.
Simvastatin is Merck & Co, Inc.’s largest selling drug and second largest selling cholesterol lowering drug in the world recorded 4.3 billion dollars of sales in 2005.[3] Zocor had an original patent expiration date of January 2006 but was extended by the United States Federal Drug Administration (FDA) set to expire on June 23, 2006. The FDA granted the patent extension after Merck & Co, Inc. submitted data from studies of the drug’s positive effect on children, a move typically used by drug companies to lengthen exclusivity.[4] Merck & Co. Inc. can expect a sharp decrease in sales once the generic versions of Simvastatin enter the cholesterol lowering market in late June 2006.
snipped from a pretty decent piece on this drug here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simvastatin
Funny thing is if we followed your economic ideology that drug you need would never have been developed. Could you possibly know any less about the pharmaceutical industry and what drives innovation? 90% of all drugs brought to market these days are developed in the U.S. Why? because they can still make a profit here instead of donating their revenue to the nanny states you are so enamored with.
In a free economy, the pursuit of profits and serving the people are one in the same. Only an unabashed socialist would think it is Pharma's responsibility to the state to create drugs for consumers. How many drugs do state controlled economies create vs. free market economies? It's all you need to know.
>> Seems Merck thinks this is the best way to compete with the generics. If they lower the price to a point they still make a profit and it prices the generics out of the market, so be it. <<
I think the concern is that Merck will hold prices ridiculously low, until it drives the generic makers bankrupt, then, lacking any competition, send prices soaring. Y'all remember when Windows offered Office for free, until it killed off Novel's office (i.e., Word Perfect), which had cost around $80, and then started charging $450? (The name, "Word Perfect" is now used by Corel.)
I would be very interested in seeing your data. Especially with specifying which are the really new drugs which were not mere minor modifications designed to keep patents recent.
Also how many of these drugs are developed without government funding? Curious minds want to know.
because they can still make a profit here instead of donating their revenue to the nanny states you are so enamored with.
Could you explain why the socialist Sweden was and is a leading center of medical and dental advances?
That's better. Thanks for taking the time to explain.
Almost every major drug company has located their R&D headquarters in the US except for those in England. England doesn't have the tax issues the others do. This occurs because drug companies located in the US can plow their profits back into R&D instead of allowing government to steal it all for their wealth redistribution schemes. They also locate here because we have the best healthcare system in the world along with the best university system in the world. The drug companies like sharing risk and technology with higher education, our doctors and our hospitals.
Especially with specifying which are the really new drugs which were not mere minor modifications designed to keep patents recent.
Damn those drug companies for trying to make their R&D investment back after the FDA sits on their approval for 10 years. It is not unusual for a new drug to have less than half its patent protection remaining once it is finally released. Those who think duty to the state drives discovery really wouldn't care if the big bad drug companies recoup their investments.
Look at the last issue of Forbes. In it you'll learn that hospital-bred infections will kill more than 100,000 Americans this year. That's more than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Drug resistant bugs represent the most immediate and important challenge we face in healthcare. By reading this article, you'd also discover that many of the most promising antibiotics are reformulations of existing drugs. A cynic would dismiss what the drug companies do as nothing more than an attempt to protect patents and profits. In some cases that is true. Scientists understand though that science learns as it progresses. In many cases products are made better by reformulating them. Nexium and Prilosec is a good example.
Also how many of these drugs are developed without government funding?
I know you know how to Google so I will not do your work for you. Suffice it to say that government spending on R&D is hefty but pales in comparison to private funding. The better question is which method is better for discovering new drugs. Who do you think is better at allocating resources to create products demanded by consumers, government or private industry?
Curious minds want to know.
ROFL! That's so disingenuous it's funny.
Could you explain why the socialist Sweden was and is a leading center of medical and dental advances?
Where do the Swedish companies locate their R&D? Does R&D in Sweden receive tax incentives? How much of R&D investment is made by private enterprise vs. what is funded by the state? How do Swedish companies compare to the rest of the world when it comes to these advances? How are these medical and dental advances related to pharmaceuticals? Inquiring minds want to know.
"90% of all drugs brought to market these days are developed in the U.S."
Did you made it up?
Did Microsoft really give away MS Office when they were competing against WP? I always wondered how Word got the upper hand on WP, because although WP for Windows 6.0 was pretty bad (not much worse than Word, though), they soon fixed it. And the WP office suite back in '95 was better integrated than MS Office is today (there still isn't a consistent arrangement of menu items between, say, Word and Excel.) Actually, to tell you the truth, I could get most things done faster in WP for DOS than I can today using Word on Windows.
BTW, patent protection is a valid part of a functioning free market. You can argue about the duration or the manner in which they are enforced, but their presence does not invalidate the concept of free trade. It's an integral component.
He knows that. He was making a joke, and a funny one at that.
"He knows that. He was making a joke, and a funny one at that."
Sorry.
You never know ... .
The problem is MERC and others may not drop it low enough to make a profit, but so low that they are actually losing money in order to drive generics out of business.... much the way AT&T did with phones prior to their breakup.
MERC can afford to lose money on one drug, while its still got large markups on others to cover it... generic producers may not have that ability.... and the end game of no generic drugs being available means eventually higher prices for everyone.
I "got it" from how you worded your post #2.
It's been their big cash cow for about twenty years now.
It's been one of the most prescribed drugs for cholesterol and heart problems on the market.
My last month's supply for thirty was $128 and some few cents. Been taking it almost five years years and don't remember it ever being under a $100.
My wife takes it and a good number of our friends do.
Merck sure had some kind of pull to keep it locked up as long as they did.
Sounds to me like the drug companies might be learning from the oil companies example in the seventies.
Get together and put the independents out of business and then in a few years you can name your own price.
No more competition no more gas..er..drug pricing wars.
Like cures for baldness?
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