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Can't believe we don't have a thread on this yet...Dakka is slow today!

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drug-ceo-will-lower-price-daraprim-after-outrage-n431926

The pharmaceutical company boss under fire for increasing the price of the drug Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent said Tuesday he will lower the cost of the life-saving medication.

Martin Shkreli did not say what the new price would be, but expected a determination to be made over the next few weeks.

He told NBC News that the decision to lower the price was a reaction to outrage over the increase in the price of the drug from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Long story short...

- Shkreli, a very creepy looking bro, raises the price of a drug that had been on the market for over 6 decades from 13.50 to 750 / pill.
- Facebook Social Justice Warrior meltdown.
- Shkreli caves to the pressure but won't mention the new price.

Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

 whembly wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

The problem is (like with most things with healthcare) that this isn't a normal, open, free market thriving with competition where the idealized forces of supply and demand work as advertised in the best interests of all parties.

 whembly wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

So I took this same view, but I've been able to find consistent information as to whether that's possible given the circumstances. For example, one source said that there was no patent on Daraprim (i.e., the patent had lapsed), implying that anybody could manufacture it. Another source said that Turing recently acquired the patent. Yet another source said that while it is not patented, Turing has sole rights to the drug due to FDA regulation loopholes. And finally, yet another source said that the patents had lapsed, but that Turing is able to control manufacturing and distribution entirely because in order to create a generic, you must compare efficacy of the generic to the name brand drug, and Turing refuses to provide samples for comparison.

I'm not sure what to believe, but it's possible that free market influences aren't being allowed to regulate the price because of government regulation somewhere along the line.

 whembly wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

The "market" is controlled by the businesses, and what it "decides" is rarely in the interests of the consumer.

 whembly wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

For medication.
What an insufferable attitude.

Enters thread

Sees Social Justice Warriors in the first post

Leaves thread

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

So I took this same view, but I've been able to find consistent information as to whether that's possible given the circumstances. For example, one source said that there was no patent on Daraprim (i.e., the patent had lapsed), implying that anybody could manufacture it. Another source said that Turing recently acquired the patent. Yet another source said that while it is not patented, Turing has sole rights to the drug due to FDA regulation loopholes. And finally, yet another source said that the patents had lapsed, but that Turing is able to control manufacturing and distribution entirely because in order to create a generic, you must compare efficacy of the generic to the name brand drug, and Turing refuses to provide samples for comparison.

I'm not sure what to believe, but it's possible that free market influences aren't being allowed to regulate the price because of government regulation somewhere along the line.

I assume that there are no generic options, whatever the reasons, otherwise the price-hike would be completely meaningless.

Looks like they're backpedaling on the price hike

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34332363

Y'know. If the internet is labled a public utility. why not medicine?

 d-usa wrote:
Enters thread

Sees Social Justice Warriors in the first post

Leaves thread

Grumpycatgood.jpg


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Looks like they're backpedaling on the price hike

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34332363

Yep this is mentioned in the OP.

When it comes to the factors that allow this to happen we really have to look at government regulation of health generally. The FDA has been sticking its fingers into all aspects of health from the draconian supplement regulations to laws on pharmaceuticals that make small business entry into production a non option.

Oops missed it


While I think most regulations are there for a good reason, there very much are huge barriers to new entrants, much like the defense industry (fi you're not Boeing, GM, Northrop, or Lockheed, don't bother), and the way rights and patents are used is often directly opposed to what their original intent was.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Oops missed it


While I think most regulations are there for a good reason, there very much are huge barriers to new entrants, much like the defense industry (fi you're not Boeing, GM, Northrop, or Lockheed, don't bother), and the way rights and patents are used is often directly opposed to what their original intent was.

Agreed on all counts. For this particular case I'd love to see a generic brand of the drug.

Health care costs are crazy inflated. Hospital fees are crazy for example, and many private practices were forced to close as doctors moved to hospitals to deal with the Obamacare health care regulations. So if you want treatment your options are more limited today than they were 30 years ago - basically you have to go to a hospital. I firmly believe that the heart of all this lies at our litigious society requiring ironclad malpractice insurance.

 whembly wrote:
What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

Except healthcare is a really gakky market, for reasons we've discussed dozens of times before.

Because the utility from the product is fething living. You pay whatever you have for a dose, because saving the money and being dead is a sub-optimal option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Enters thread

Sees Social Justice Warriors in the first post

Leaves thread

Is that term becoming like 'Barack Hussein Obama'? A really good way of spotting someone uninterested or incapable of sensible conversation?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Health care costs are crazy inflated. Hospital fees are crazy for example, and many private practices were forced to close as doctors moved to hospitals to deal with the Obamacare health care regulations. So if you want treatment your options are more limited today than they were 30 years ago - basically you have to go to a hospital. I firmly believe that the heart of all this lies at our litigious society requiring ironclad malpractice insurance.

The prevalence of malpractice is certainly an issue, but it is way overblown as a driver of US health problems. Its cost are generally found to be about 1 or 2% of total US healthcare, and that isn't good but it's nothing compared to the scale of the issue.

The biggest issue is basically a collection of really screwy economic incentives. From paying for procedure to the absence of a decent, cross industry framework to decide what treatments are viable, the result is paying way too much for unnecessary treatments, and at the same time failing to pay for treatments that would actually improve people's lives.

Quick side note to people reading this thread mentioning the free market: I want to briefly explain something about drug development.

When a drug company creates a drug, it takes an enormous amount of R&D to bring it to market. Everyone knows that; it's super, super expensive and there are lot of things that don't pan out, etc etc etc - but we need to have drug development. As a result, the FDA gives drug manufacturers an incentive to offset that: drugs have patent protection for a fixed duration. So, when a pharma company, lets say Big Motyak, comes out with Trollium® - which has the active ingredient banhammer - only Big Motyak can market and sell Trollium® for a certain timeframe - I believe it's 7 years. Even if the drug costs 2 cents per pill to crank out in some Indian warehouse, they have the right to sell it for $1 dollar a pill or $10 a pill because that cost represents not only profit, but the offset cost of development.

The other side of that is that once that that window closes, the drug "goes generic"; and now any interested drug company can produce that medication. So, Big Alpharius can start producing generic banhammer - the Trollium® name is still patented, but that isn't really important. Sometimes the original company is the only one who makes it (because it's really cheap to make, or it's a giant pain in the ass to produce, or whatever - but at that point, anyone can make and market it.

So, the free market isn't usually at play.

Those same drug companies spend millions, sometimes tens or hundreds of millions, in marketing said drugs, paying doctors to prescribe it, and on lobbyists for their interests in Washington.

The "we need to charge that for more R&D!" line is almost entirely BS.

 Psienesis wrote:
Those same drug companies spend millions, sometimes tens or hundreds of millions, in marketing said drugs, paying doctors to prescribe it, and on lobbyists for their interests in Washington.

Sure, but - that's the business, right? I mean, I'm not defending what this guy did, but these things seems like the costs of selling a drug in modern society. I mean, I'd like to say that make it might be better if there wasn't a huge profit incentive in keeping sick people from dying, but then I think I'd be some kind of socialist.

 sebster wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Sees Social Justice Warriors in the first post

Leaves thread

Is that term becoming like 'Barack Hussein Obama'? A really good way of spotting someone uninterested or incapable of sensible conversation?

Yes.

 d-usa wrote:
Enters thread

Sees Social Justice Warriors in the first post

Leaves thread

In this case, that's a title of honor in my book.

 Ouze wrote:
...snip...
The other side of that is that once that that window closes, the drug "goes generic"; and now any interested drug company can produce that medication. So, Big Alpharius can start producing generic banhammer - the Trollium® name is still patented, but that isn't really important. Sometimes the original company is the only one who makes it (because it's really cheap to make, or it's a giant pain in the ass to produce, or whatever - but at that point, anyone can make and market it.

So, the free market isn't usually at play.

Knowing all of that, I don't think it's so much that the drug simply goes generic, it's that it's "open" to going generic. That still requires other companies to acquire the drug, dissect it and begin manufacture.


In this case, the drug has been available for over 60 years... I'd be willing to bet that "R&D costs" have been met quite some time ago, and the price hike in the OP is simply a Dick Move™


Also, I"m thinking this clown isn't caving to online pressure, but rather that some VERY powerful insurance folks called him up personally and told him what's up.

 Ouze wrote:
Quick side note to people reading this thread mentioning the free market: I want to briefly explain something about drug development.

When a drug company creates a drug, it takes an enormous amount of R&D to bring it to market. Everyone knows that; it's super, super expensive and there are lot of things that don't pan out, etc etc etc - but we need to have drug development. As a result, the FDA gives drug manufacturers an incentive to offset that: drugs have patent protection for a fixed duration. So, when a pharma company, lets say Big Motyak, comes out with Trollium® - which has the active ingredient banhammer - only Big Motyak can market and sell Trollium® for a certain timeframe - I believe it's 7 years. Even if the drug costs 2 cents per pill to crank out in some Indian warehouse, they have the right to sell it for $1 dollar a pill or $10 a pill because that cost represents not only profit, but the offset cost of development.

The other side of that is that once that that window closes, the drug "goes generic"; and now any interested drug company can produce that medication. So, Big Alpharius can start producing generic banhammer - the Trollium® name is still patented, but that isn't really important. Sometimes the original company is the only one who makes it (because it's really cheap to make, or it's a giant pain in the ass to produce, or whatever - but at that point, anyone can make and market it.

So, the free market isn't usually at play.

In most cases... every drug manufacturer can make anything.

The problem is when these companies "tweak" the formula (usually some inactive ingredient), and BLAMO! Patent renewed.

fething sucks ass balls man and Patent reform is sorely needed.

So "free market" isn't really the issue... it's big money business carving out their own special interest laws to ensure their viability.

Also, the other problem is that tort reform is needed as well. Look up who manufacturers the pnuemo/flu vaccines and find out why so few makes 'em.

 whembly wrote:
So "free market" isn't really the issue...

Yeah, the free market isn't the issue. The point is that the free market isn't going to be the solution either. Because health is a market where basic free market operations go screwy.

The first issue, which I already mentioned, is that there's no cap on the utility of a product that keeps you alive. If it was a normal product, let's say sandwiches because I'm eating one right now and am not very imaginative, then once the price reached a certain point I wouldn't be willing to pay it, or would start buying them less often. This is the downward slope to the demand curve. But in medicine that line is pretty much a straight line - if it costs $13.75 I will buy my needed dose, if the price is $750 I will buy my needed dose. In this case the demand curve is a straight vertical line - at any point people will purchase the fixed quantity.

The second issue, that I thought on touching on in my last post but decided against, only to have Ouze go through it extremely well, is that drugs have almost all their costs in research and development. Normally supply is controlled by rising costs of production, so if the sandwich maker wants to make more he might need to use a more expensive supplier of ingredients, for instance. That's the upward slope of the supply curve. But with drugs, almost all the cost has been incurred before the drug hit the market, with manufacturing costs being so tiny the supplier will be willing to supply as much as he can sell at $13.75, and as much as he can sell at $750. In this case the supply curve is also a vertical line.

Now, demand and supply works by finding the point where the downward sloping demand and upward sloping supply lines intersect. But where do two vertical lines intersect? They don't.

According to Wikipedia:

In India, multiple combinations of generic pyrimethanine are available for a price ranging from U.S. $0.05–$0.10 each (3–7 rupees).[22]

In the UK, Daraprim is available from GSK at a cost of U.S. $20 (£13) for 30 tablets (approx. $0.66 each).

The uprorar is not that a drug cost a lot of money to develop and thus, needs to be expensive to recoup the R&D.

It's that an existing, already-researched 50+ year old drug's cost went up 50x after the rights were purchased by a new holder who then proceeded to increase the cost.

I don't quite understand how the guy expects to make money. People will just import it from India and undercut his price.

He hasn't purchased the rights to the drug itself, only the brand name in the USA.

Could it be he just wants to gouge the armed forces? One of the main uses of this drug is anti-malarial, so the army for example has to dose lots of troops going into affected areas. Knowing bureauracy, the army probably is requried to purchase the specific brand name from a US supplier.

I heard all I needed to when the reporter said "former hedge fund manager".

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Can't believe we don't have a thread on this yet...Dakka is slow today!

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drug-ceo-will-lower-price-daraprim-after-outrage-n431926

The pharmaceutical company boss under fire for increasing the price of the drug Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent said Tuesday he will lower the cost of the life-saving medication.

Martin Shkreli did not say what the new price would be, but expected a determination to be made over the next few weeks.

He told NBC News that the decision to lower the price was a reaction to outrage over the increase in the price of the drug from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Long story short...

- Shkreli, a very creepy looking bro, raises the price of a drug that had been on the market for over 6 decades from 13.50 to 750 / pill.
- Facebook Social Justice Warrior meltdown.
- Shkreli caves to the pressure but won't mention the new price.

Its enough to make you want to vote for Bernie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Well I'm certainly interested in people defending this.

What's there to defend?

The market will determine the price.

*shrugs*

Come talk to me when medicine is a free market.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Enters thread

Sees Social Justice Warriors in the first post

Leaves thread

Come d, nows your time to shine.

You want to unfurl Dakka outrage post the CEO's actual posts/tweets whatever. Its like he screaming for the Sandinistas to break in and put him a against the wall.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
Those same drug companies spend millions, sometimes tens or hundreds of millions, in marketing said drugs, paying doctors to prescribe it, and on lobbyists for their interests in Washington.

The "we need to charge that for more R&D!" line is almost entirely BS.

Here's a heresy, I actually like most of Hillary's new proposal...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't quite understand how the guy expects to make money. People will just import it from India and undercut his price.

He hasn't purchased the rights to the drug itself, only the brand name in the USA.

Could it be he just wants to gouge the armed forces? One of the main uses of this drug is anti-malarial, so the army for example has to dose lots of troops going into affected areas. Knowing bureauracy, the army probably is requried to purchase the specific brand name from a US supplier.

And here's a another reason its literally antifree market. There are severe restrictions on importation of drugs outside the country, supposedly for health reasons. I knew people who would import cheaper drugs from Canada because they couldn't afford it here. Guess who shut that down...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't quite understand how the guy expects to make money. People will just import it from India and undercut his price.

He hasn't purchased the rights to the drug itself, only the brand name in the USA.

Could it be he just wants to gouge the armed forces? One of the main uses of this drug is anti-malarial, so the army for example has to dose lots of troops going into affected areas. Knowing bureauracy, the army probably is requried to purchase the specific brand name from a US supplier.

While individuals can obtain drugs made in other countries, I'm pretty sure that your local pharmacy won't be carrying Indian Daraprim.

People will order it through the internet.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
People will order it through the internet.

Sure, and nobody can blame them, but it's not legal.