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Drug Company CEO Blames Drug Industry For Increased Drug Resistance
BarbaraHudson writes Times Live is reporting that while doctors have usually been blamed for bacterial resistance because of over-prescribing, Karl Rotthier, chief executive of the Dutch DSM Sinochem Pharmaceuticals, claims lax procedures at drugs companies are the real cause. "Most antibiotics are now produced in China and India and I do not think it is unjust to say that the environmental conditions have been quite different in these regions. Poor controls mean that antibiotics are leaking out and getting into drinking water. They are in the fish and cattle that we eat, and global travel and exports mean bacteria are traveling. That is making a greater contribution to the growth of antibiotic resistance than over-prescribing", Rothier said. "We cannot have companies discharging untreated waste water into our environment, contributing to illness and, worse, antibacterial resistance. We cannot accept that rivers in India show higher concentrations of active antibiotic than the blood of someone undergoing treatment."
Isn't that needed to kill the germs from all the dead bodies they float down the river? India is a pit. :(
Poor controls mean that antibiotics are leaking out and getting into drinking water. They are in the fish and cattle that we eat, and global travel and exports mean bacteria are traveling.
And those fish, cattle and even people are getting those antibiotics for *free* - seriously impacting our bottom line and tight-fisted control over drugs that, in reality, don't really cost as much as we say they do to research and manufacture, but we sell for a metric fuck-ton of cash.
According to this NY Times article, $2.6 Billion to Develop a Drug? New Estimate Makes Questionable Assumptions are an "estimate that drug companies could have made more money if they used their research investment for things other than drug development."
In both of these announcements, a significant amount of the costs to develop the drugs were opportunity, or time, costs. They are the returns that might be expected, but that investors went without, while a drug was in development. When a drug company invests in research and development, it is tying up money that could otherwise be invested elsewhere. In this announcement, the Tufts Center says that $1.2 billion of the $2.6 billion is time costs.
The end of the article notes:
In 2010, a systematic review of studies that looked at the cost of drug development was published in Health Policy. The review found 13 articles, with estimates ranging from $161 million to $1.8 billion (in 2009 dollars). Obviously, methodology matters.
That's a far cry from $2.6 Billion.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
More on this: http://www.nature.com/news/201...
Antibiotic resistance is estimated to contribute to more than 25000 deaths every year in Europe alone.
Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered in 1928 and more than 100 compounds have been found since but, until a reported discovery earlier this month, no new class has been found since 1987.
Dame Sally Davies, the UK government's chief medical officer, has said that antibiotic resistance is "as big a risk as terrorism" and warned that Britain could return to a 19th-century world in which the smallest infection or operation could kill.
Rotthier said the responsibility was on everyone, from patients and doctors to governments and pharmaceutical companies, to take immediate steps to ensure the "legacy of antibiotics as a life-saving medicine is not squandered".
We're running out of "magic bullets" to kill off bacteria. If you're a cynic, you could ask "What good is it to run a drug company if the drugs you make aren't in demand because they no longer work?" If you take it at face value, it's "This is some scary stuff that can affect everyone."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Exactly WHO decided to manufacture in China, that would be the big Drug companies as a guess. Exactly WHO should be monitoring their manufacture, that would be the big Drug companies as a guess. Exactly WHO encourages over subscription, a pill for everything, that would be the big Drug companies as a guess.
My guess is something went wrong somewhere and they are starting the smokescreen already to divert attention.
Exactly WHO here is the FDA, since they are the authority that allows those "big Drug companies" to even be in the business of making or selling drugs.
And yes, something went wrong. It's called the Military Prescription Complex, also known as Big Pharma. You want to point to something or someone? How about you point the finger back to the very organization in charge of regulating Big Pharma.
Course it might help if you didn't fill the fucking regulatory board overseeing that with a bunch of ex Big Pharma cronies hell-bent on ensuring profits are prioritized to the point of questioning their dedication to the Hippocratic oath.
No, the GP is almost certainly correct. As the CEO of a drug company, if Rotthier were arguing for onerous regulation of his own company out of concern for the environment...he would be the ex-CEO of a drug company. However, since his company manufactures drugs in Europe and that kind of dumping ("irresponsible behaviour") is already illegal, he is not-that-unjustly arguing--and probably lobbying--for protectionism against Asian drug manufacturers that are not held to the same environmental standards, and thereby presumably gain a (rather small) competitive advantage.
However, if their products were banned from import into Europe until they came into compliance with European restrictions (much like electronics must be RoHS compliant to be legally imported), then for some period the Asian manufacturers would be at an immense competitive disadvantage, which might even erode their market shares permanently. Even in the more likely case that they were given time to comply, they are getting bad PR and needing additional capital outlays that don't inherently increase profitability.