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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.
...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.
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.)
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.
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.