Posted on 09/23/2015 4:59:54 PM PDT by GIdget2004
I think the news had it that the spoiled brat reversed himself and dropped the price today. I have not seen any proof of that, though.
Bad idea.
The primary issue with Daraprim is that it is quite close to being an “orphan drug” because of the small number of people who need it.
Cut the patent protection from 20 years to 3 years? That would force the drug companies to increase the wholesale prices to re-coup their investment in three years instead of 20. Also, it would lead to a sharp increase in the number of promising molecules that would never be investigated because there would be no way to re-coup the costs...
Generic houses are bottom feeders - they don’t have to spend billion$ on safety and efficacy studies. So, don’t look there for any kind of solution.
Reasonable doesn’t allow vastly overpaying for the company in the first place.
I have seen the scenario played out repeatedly:A publically traded company is taken over by a hostile buyout,and the first act is to reduce staff at all levels whilst demanding they work harder to produce the same product or service as before but using less resources and often involuntarily swirThed to lower quality raw material supplys.Or an entire SERVICE department eliminated because its profit was ONLY 30% and someone promised outsourcing could provide 50% profit-never mind the services would be provided by a constantly changing workforce with no brand loyalty or tradition of personal services.
In the end, the taxpayers will be picking up the bill for this outrageous price increase, which is why it was done in the first place.
He is also a major crook.
He stole lots of money and is being sued by ex partners for it. He also gave money to John Kerry and Hillary Clinton in years past so you know he is a crook and off his meds.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3243938/Ex-hedge-funder-32-hated-man-internet-defends-jacking-prices-AIDS-medication-5500.html
I beg to differ.
It seems that again the over regulation of the drug market is keeping new entries from making the free market work here.
If it wasn’t that hard to start making this drug for the market, the guy never could have got away with this. He would go out of business.
Government distorting the market...
Kind of a conundrum, isn't it? Hate for big government to keep spreading its tentacles, but it may be the only way to really stop it. I'd bet that the same drug is available in Canada at a lower price than In the USA.
Maybe insurance companies can refuse to pay a penny for it, but that raises a whole new boondoggle - really rich could afford it and it would further empower insurers to veto more costs.
Do you have any ideas? All of mine have other strings/hooks that aren't much prettier than the main problem at hand.
That would be a disastrous idea and would effectively end development of any new drugs.
It takes on average 10 – 12 years for a new drug to make it from an idea and into the lab and through all the testing; the laboratory research, the animal and human trials and through the FDA approval process, if it ever gets approved, and many do not but the R&D costs are still tremendous and are often never recouped and patents are applied for and granted long prior to final FDA approval as to protect their intellectual rights. So in your scenario, a drug maker would lose their patent before even manufacturing and selling their first shipment and another company could start making a generic without ever incurring the original company’s R&D costs and far under cut them in the market from day one. And why just stop at reducing the patent term just for drugs to 3 years? Why not reduce it for everything? Why? Because it would end all innovations.
Force the drug companies to earn market share by cutting costs, like most business have to do
Some costs are in part because of government oversight and regulations (FDA). And while I have some issues with the FDA, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Look up the history behind why the FDA was created in the first place – “patent medicines” and “snake oil treatments”. At one time anyone could make and sell a “patent drug” or elixir and they didn’t have to disclose any of the actual ingredients, often with high amounts of alcohol and or cocaine or heroin and all sorts of impurities and they could make all sorts of outrageous claims about what these elixirs would “cure”.
http://www.discoveriesinmedicine.com/Ni-Ra/Patent-Medicine.html
http://www.hagley.org/online_exhibits/patentmed/history/history.html
Also see my post here were I attempt to explain the costs involved in getting a drug from lab to FDA approval to into patients, having seen it first hand:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3340301/posts?page=46#46
Not to defend this guy, Martin Shkreli, who BTW and IMO came off in this as being a class A jerk, but part if his reasoning for the huge (or as Trump would say “Yuge”) price increase was because in his purchase of the drug and a few others raising the price, it would help fund his new company’s further R&D and development of better, cheaper and more effective drugs to do the same thing.
BTW. Has anyone bothered to look at what it costs to buy or lease in any of properties owned by Trump?
-— Look up the history behind why the FDA was created in the first place – “patent medicines” and “snake oil treatments”. -—
True, but it was also 1910. These days private companies could replace the FDA, and they would be highly motivated to do a good job, since failure could drive them out of business, unlike government agencies which don’t face that threat.
Additionally, government certification can cost lives by unnecessarily delaying approvals.
As Milton Friedman said, delaying approval costs a bureaucrat nothing, but approving a medication poses risks.
Agreed. But I also think there has to be some sort of oversight. But that could I guess be accomplished by a non-government certification org.
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