[Principled]

Now they must sell the pills to countries with socialized medicine where costs are controlled by laws instead of the free market.

Could you help me with this claim? Who says they "must sell to countries with socialized med"... and the article further connotes that this sale is at a below market price.

I don't think they "have to" sell to socialized countries... and I'm dang sure they don't have to sell to anyone below market.

I think that some drug companies choose to sell a few bits of drugs below market for PR - but nothing beyond a strong marketing budget.

If Canucks (or anyone else) have unlimited access to cheap drugs, it's because their taxes subsidize prices... making it so that our access to the drugs amounts to Canadian gov't subsidies of US individual drug purchases.

That being said, your point that we pay high prices so that others can have low prices, is not far off IMO. Just ask the UN.

[Mason]

Principled notes that companies don't have to sell, and that's true, but there are two practical problems.

One is that the drug patents are, I believe in all cases, disclosed, so not selling depends on these countries enforcing our companies intellectual property rights. That is, that they won't just start manufacturing generics right away. I don't know how strong this patent-protection regime is worldwide. It's probably decent in Canada and Europe, lousy in Africa and Asia, and not reliable anywhere.

Secondly, it's a marginal cost thing. If companies begin selling in the U.S., then any other markets they add, above their marginal cost of manufacture, which, for estimation purposes, is probably zero, is just additional revenue. It's not fair, but it's the way it is.

[TomGuy]

Yeh, drug co's wouldn't be selling to the socialized countries if they weren't making a profit.

All this rant about the US patients subsidizing Canada and other countries is just more corporate BS. The problem with selling to Canada and other countries is that the companies don't make quite as much of a profit as they do in the US--but they do make a profit or they wouldn't sell to those countries.

[AndyJackson]

they don't have to sell to anyone below market.

When you have a monopoly there is no "market" price, since without regulation you get to set the price. The question that remains unanswered is the comparison between the selling price and the cost of production, including full cost recovery over some reasonable number of years.