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Another Pharma Company Recaptures a Generic Medication
Applehu Akbar writes: Daraprim, currently used as a niche AIDS medication, was developed and patented by Glaxo (now GlaxoSmithKlein) decades ago. Though Glaxo's patent has long since expired, a startup called Turing Pharmaceuticals has been the latest pharma company to 'recapture' a generic by using legal trickery to gain exclusive rights to sell it in the US. Though Turing has just marketing rights, not a patent, on Daraprim, it takes advantage of pharma-pushed laws that forbid Americans from shopping around on the world market for prescriptions. Not long ago, Google was fined half a billion dollars by the FDA for allowing perfectly legal Canadian pharmacies to advertise on its site. So now that Turing has a lock on Daraprim, it has raised the price from $13.50 a pill to $750. In 2009 another small pharma company inveigled an exclusive on the longstanding generic gout medication colchicine from the FDA, effectively rebranding the unmodified generic so they could raise its price by a similar percentage.
They can't, because of the loophole (which is not explained in this article, but is in other articles like http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pi... ): You are not allowed to sell a generic equivalent unless you can prove it is as effective as the nongeneric version. In order to prove it is as effective as the nongeneric version, you need to do trials that compare it to the nongeneric version. The company that owns the nongeneric version refuses to sell you any, so you can't do trials, so you can't prove it's effective, so you can't sell it.
Because that's what they're doing: Killing people by taking their medication away from them.
Daraprim (generic name Pyrimethamine) is also used a alternative treatment for maleria where quinine cannot be used, although resistance is now prevalent worldwide. The manufacturing cost is roughly $1 per 25 mg tablet, so even the old price of $13.50 per tablet is a very substantial markup. A typical course of treatment requires around 90 to 120 tablets.
Anyone in the USA needing this drug should fly to the UK where it is still manufactured by GKN and sold for the equivalent of $70 for 90 tablets. Those same 90 tablets would cost $67,500 at the new price in the USA, so the saving would be substantial even allowing for air fare, hotel, etc.
Some enterprising company willing to spend the money to get approval to import the drug from the UK would put this startup out of business. Hopefully.
Unless the startup just drops the price back down to put the enterprising company out of business.
The whole idea behind drug pricing is really weird. How do you determine a price for something that can literally mean the difference between life and death? What happens when you have things like drug plans, insurance, and regulations to ensure quality. I really don't know how you'd expect a market to properly function.
I stole this Sig
...I know how I'd spend my last time on Earth.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
He also owns League of Legends and DOTA2 pro teams.
How much you want to bet he posts about ethics in game journalism on 8chan?
Here is an actual photo of Martin Shrkeli:
http://www.slate.com/content/d...
And, if you think I'm being unfair comparing Shrkeli to a certain now-defunct hashtag group beginning with the letter "G", I suggest you read through some of his Tweets. See if you recognize the tone and substance of his arguments. In other words, where have you seen this kind of stuff before?:
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/0...
You are welcome on my lawn.
This loophole should be fixed, but given the dysfunctional state of the Congress any bill fixing this will probably be encumbered with a prohibition on abortions and more NSA spying.
Eh, I think this case may be outrageous enough to get them to close this particular loophole, and here's why: it's an indefensible perverse incentive, Big Pharma doesn't need it, and the last thing the lobby wants is for politicians to be talking about drug prices in general. Right now their stock prices are falling because of Clinton's comment, and most people working in biotech or pharma think Shkreli is an asshole* and would happily feed him to the wolves anyway. What they need is a very targeted bill that prevents this particular abuse but doesn't touch any other part of the wider industry's business model. I think they could get broad bipartisan support for this - it's the kind of no-brainer that allows politicians to take credit for something without having to address real-world problems.
(* Most of us have scientific backgrounds, and Shkreli is exactly the kind of humanities-major business-weasel we've despised since college. Actually, worse, because most econ majors don't eventually stalk the families of former employees. No one else will cry when his BMW is repossessed.)
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with your country?
How long of a list do you want? Cronyism, nepotism, and more corruption than you could discuss in a week. Worse than some in certain areas, but not totally unique. Most of us from the US on Slashdot know about it and discuss it. Convincing the masses of the problems and working toward solutions is another story. Again, not unlike other countries where the masses live in extreme poverty and don't revolt, while the bureaucrats live like kings. Our poor just happen to be better off than your poor (I think)
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The villain who upset the apple cart though. I can imagine a lot of pharmaceutical CEOs highly annoyed that after years of slowly raising prices, one new asshole raises them suddenly so that the whole world now takes notice.
At the doctor the other day I found out they charge less if you don't have insurance. They charge the insurance compaines more because they know they can get it.
Which in the end costs everyone more who is paying for insurance.
W/insurance $237 $75 dedductable
WO/insurance $50
So it looks like you are paying a lot less with that $75 than you really are. Since its a lot of the reason why your premiums are so high.
Its more systemic than anyone wants to admit.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The problem is, government regulation and interference is why the company is able to buy exclusive rights to the generic drug in the first place.
The government isn't the solution here. Government is what is causing the problems.
As others have stated, the drug is available very cheaply outside of this country. However, the government will not let us import the drug. If we were able to, the local company would be forced to drop the price or stop production. That is how capitalism works.
Unfortunately, the USA is not capitalist any longer, at least not in the way it pretends to be. The problem is the politicians getting in bed with the corporations so that laws which benefit the corporations - and only the corporations - are rammed through. The problem is not capitalism, because we don't really have it anymore. The problem is corruption.
So you are correct - we don't have a free market. We have a market controlled by the government, with the government controlled by the corporations.
A free market without the government bending to the will of the corporations wouldn't have this problem.
Less government control is the best solution.
Love sees no species.
or even recommend a summer vacation to Canada
That would be preferable to buying from online "Canadian" pharmacies, which aren't that at all but mostly fronts for Russian organised crime. You'll be shipped generics from India, not Canada. It's not as bad as it sounds because they depend on repeat customers so they work pretty hard to keep customers happy (you generally get the real deal, your credit card won't get ripped off, etc), but it's still taking a bit of a gamble.
It's a complicated situation. Outside the US, critlcal/life-saving drugs are generally covered by government regulations that keep them affordable. Inside the US, pharma companies get to set whatever price they want. Since this drives buyers to non-US sources, they've got their friends in the US congress to pass laws making it illegal to buy (or at least bring in) drugs from alternative sources. Sure, some people will die because they can't afford the medication they need, but by and large profit margins will be maintained. It's an acceptable loss.