Posted on 09/23/2015 8:59:46 AM PDT by SatinDoll
C'mon folks, this isn't complicated.
Hill used Indian government data on the cost of pharmaceutical ingredients and allowed for a 50-percent profit margin - but no money for investment in research - to work out the costs of producing certain drugs.
On this basis, he found that Novartis' leukaemia drug Glivec actually cost $159 for a year's treatment, against the $106,000 charged in the United States.
Roche's Tarceva for lung cancer cost $236, against a U.S. price of $79,000, and Novartis' Tykerb cost $4,000 against a price of $74,000.
In all these cases the U.S. cost was far above that charged in certain western European countries, where Glivec costs approximately $29,000-35,000, Tarceva $26,000-29,000 and Tykerb around $35,000, Hill reported.
How do you have a price that is double to triple that charged in other western European nations in the United States?
There is only one way: You must both eviscerate private property rights -- that is, the right to do with something you lawfully acquire as you wish and you must completely ignore 15 USC which criminalizes attempted price-fixing.
You cannot price-fix in the market if you charge different prices in different places without both -- at least not by more than the cost of transportation plus a relatively small amount of profit!
There is no "market" in these drugs and the drug-makers have lobbied for and obtained the legal environment that makes this so. This is trivially easy to correct -- put a stop to that crap by enforcing the "first sale" doctrine (that which I own is mine to dispose of as I wish) and vigorously prosecute any attempt to constrain markets, sales and distribution where market power exists.
This would result in an immediate leveling of prices across the world for these drugs. They might rise in some other nations, maybe in a lot of other nations. But they would drop like a stone here.
Everyone wants to talk about forcing price levels for US sale. There is no need to force anything. Simply enforce the right to sell whatever you own and prosecute any corporation (and its executives) that try to restrict distribution and cross-border shipment of such drugs.
It’s just as Trump said, Americans are saps for the whole world to take advantage of. Here and hundreds of other ways.
No one in Canada or Mexico prevents US citizens from purchasing drugs from their pharmacies, it is the good ol’ FDA. With that being the case I would hardly call our market “free”.
Comment from the Ticker-guy:
“I’d give them a choice — either STFU or do 10 years for violating the Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman acts.”
You left out a key factor - litigation risk, which is much higher in the US than overseas. That could be addressed - it was for certain vaccines - but there will be a transfer of risk to the individual associated with that.
Actually, it’s even worse than that. When is the last time you saw a blaring headline about some disease actually being cured? There are lots of headlines about some “promising” line of research that “might” one day lead to a cure, but I can remember exactly ZERO such announcements of a real cure of a real disease. People are staring to catch on so that many medical charities no longer promise a “cure”, but rather your contribution is used for research and “awareness.”
“RISK”.
That is a part of capitalism. If you’re is business and believe is a free-market system, then you accept it. If not — the you go with dictatorship.
There are serious problems with the economics of drug development and production. But to claim that cancer researchers and pharma don’t want to cure cancer is disingenuous. They have been doing a pretty good job over the last twenty years. Specifically, death rates have dropped by more than 30% for colorectal cancer, breast cancer in women, and lung cancer in men, and by more than 40% for prostate cancer. Those are real, dramatic reductions in cancer deaths and are mostly attributed to two things - reduced smoking and BETTER TREATMENTS.
It's a mistake to refer to "a cure for cancer".
"Cancer" is not one thing. It is a multitude of diseases whose commonality is that the tumor cells have damaged DNA and the damage can be passed on to descendant cells.
The "cure" to any given cancer depends upon the specific damage done to the DNA.
A particular form of Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (called GIST), for example, comes about due to a single change in a single spot in the DNA. Except for this change, which permits uncontrolled cell growth, the cells are indistinguishable from normal cells. The fact that Glivec can halt the uncontrolled growth of these cells without killing the normal cells in the body strikes me as almost miraculous.
This same drug, Glivec, has prolonged the lives of many people with CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia). I know a woman who has been taking Glivec and similar drugs for eleven years. The five year survival rate for CML is now around 90% (up from about 40% I think) thanks to drugs like Glivec.
Other cancers are not so simple and come about through a series of DNA changes. There's lots of research still needed and it will take mountains of money to pay for it. Only western capitalist countries have the resources to do this.
Condolences for your loss.
Thank you much for your wife’s story. Sorry that she is gone.
I appreciate your insight into chemo. I have often wondered about that. If the chances of curing the cancer are very, very slight, maybe a comfortable death via painkillers until death would be the way to go. Certainly save a lot of money.
So, only the highest bidders will get lifesaving drugs?
THAT is not what I’ve said. What part of BIGPHARM violating national laws did you miss?
Bingo [and, to some extent, Western Europe]! Not completely unfair, but not completely fair either.
Can one wait for health care innovations to come out of Muslim or African countries?
Oh, SNAP!!
Someone did not have their Cheerios this morning!
If the first purchaser has the right to resell, then, it logically follows that, the highest subsequent bidder will purchase the drugs. So, someone advocating for the right of the first purchaser, is, in effect, advocating for the wealthiest, or the subsidized, to have first place in the secondary market.
Where does that logic fail [i.e. stick to the subject please]?
Sounds great in theory, and it might work. I just want to caution you that the two states that tried no-fault auto insurance on a similar basis both had / have by far the highest auto insurance rates in the country. On the other hand, it could be like worker's comp insurance, which might reduce the problem. But the plaintiffs' lawyers that own the democrats would never let something like this through. That's big money you're taking from them and they'll fight hard to keep it.
You sound like you’d be an Edwards for President backer.
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