Drug Giant Pledges Cheap Medicine For World's Poor

bmsleight writes in with a Guardian piece on the decision of the world's second biggest pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, to radically shift its attitude towards providing cheap drugs to millions of people in the developing world. "[The new CEO] said that GSK will... cut its prices for all drugs in the 50 least developed countries to no more than 25% of the levels in the UK and US — and less if possible — and make drugs more affordable in middle-income countries such as Brazil and India; put any chemicals or processes over which it has intellectual property rights that are relevant to finding drugs for neglected diseases into a 'patent pool,' so they can be explored by other researchers; and reinvest 20% of any profits it makes in the least developed countries in hospitals, clinics, and staff."

Comments

obvious why ...

[tyroneking]

from the article: "although they worry that it may undermine the generics industry which currently supplies the cheapest drugs in poor countries"

Re:It's called market segmentation

[hairyfeet]

Actually many of the drugs are found by universities using federal dollars and THEN the drug companies buy the rights and bend you over. Allow me to introduce you to a drug I am familiar with as I am on it-Remicade, which as you can see on the Wiki was developed at NY school of medicine. Do you know how much they charge for 8 treatments(1 year) of the stuff? $67,898. That's right, you could shoot pure platinum into your veins for cheaper.

And it isn't like it only treats some super rare condition either. It has been approved and works wonders on psoriasis, Crohn's disease, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, sarcoidosis and ulcerative colitis. Wow, that's a lot of folks. I wonder how many are suffering now because they can't actually get it? I would LOVE to see the profit margins on the drug, because I'm guessing by the tiny little vials they are probably making in the 2000-4000% profit range. Because you certainly don't get much for your $67k.

but if you look up the numbers the biggest expense of the major drug companies is NOT R&D, it is advertising. All those irritating ads pushing you to tell your doctor you want their pill o' the week. I bet the profit margins on THOSE drugs are beyond insane which is why they push them so hard. But if we don't get a handle on the multi $$$$% profits the drug companies are making we are ALL going to lose, as we simply can't pay for the drugs for ourselves as well as the "charity" they show the third world (and make up the difference with our insurance). The gravy train is coming to an end and the economy ain't going to be getting better anything soon folks. I actually know folks living by candlelight because the choice was paying their rent or their lights. So the drug companies better learn to live on the margins like the rest of us unless they want us to go to nationalized health care.