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Drug Firm Offers $1 Version of $750 Daraprim Pill (chicagotribune.com)
An anonymous reader writes: We recently read about a U.S. company that bought the rights to a drug called Daraprim and then boosted the price over 5,000%. There was widespread outrage over this blatant price gouging, most of it focused on hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli. Now, a San Diego-based drug company called Imprimis has stepped in to fill the void. They announced that they'll be supplying capsules containing the same active ingredients in Daraprim for $1 per dose. Their CEO, Mark Baum, said they'll also start making alternative versions of other generic medicines that have skyrocketed in price lately. "Imprimis, which primarily makes compounded drugs to treat cataracts and urological conditions, will work with health insurers and prescription benefit managers in each state to make its new capsules and other compounded generic medicines widely available, Baum said."
It's usually not the manufacturing that is so expensive but the research and testing needing to get the drug on the market. In this case neither company needs to do any research or additional testing with the FDA since the drug is well known and has been on the market for 60 years. That doesn't apply with a brand new drug which may have to go through years of testing even if the first version is perfect with no side effects.
The two drug combo tablet, Pyrimethamine 25mg + Sulfadoxine 500mg, has many generic suppliers in India, for under 4 cents a tablet, with a lot more sulfa drug added in. The aseptic pilling and blister packaging probably cost more than the pyrimethamine at 1 cent.
$13.50 per tablet of 25 mg pyrimethamine was a joke and an utter ripoff. The $750 makes the French Revolution more understandable when they started shortening corrupt financiers and government royalists after a short trial...Sort of a closer shave with that super sized Gillete thing.
No. He (Shkreli) is hiking prices AND shorting biotech.
And he made a fortune.
People don't get this: this 5x drug price hike thing was all theatre. He wasn't trying to make some trivial amount off the pill, he was trolling. And important politicians bit, making comments to the press that dropped biotech stocks by about 25% over fears of "political action". Fucker made a mint.
You'd think at least here on /. we'd be better at spotting trolls!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
He got the U.S. marketing rights to that formulation. To the best of my knowledge, before Imprimis started making their DIFFERENT formulation, there wasn't a generic.
The plan (or part of it) was that anyone who needed the drug in the U.S. would only be able to get it through specific vendors who got it from Shkreli's company. There were significant barriers in place to keep companies who might make generics of the same formulation from getting enough of that formulation to reverse engineer it.
However, the particular active ingredient can be used in other formulations which aren't covered by the rights that Shkreli's company has. Specifically, there is a loophole that allows Imprimis to do what it just did - make a different formulation.
Now, they (Imprimis) can still only make this stuff on request. They can't mass produce the drug, supply it to pharmacies and thereby fully extend the giant middle finger to Shkreli. However, they are able to produce it on a "per request" basis for individual customers.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Part of the problem here is that the FDA requires generics do need to undergo testing similar to the original product (instead of merely proving that the ingredients in the generic are the same as in the original product), which can take years and millions of dollars. These FDA requirements make generics expensive to produce -- meaning that generic versions of many drugs do not exist. Without the FDA requirements, the market would take care of ridiculous price bumps by bringing in competitors.
Now, I just claimed that the FDA makes it hard to bring generics to the market, so how did a competitor spring up so quickly in this case? The answer is that the new manufacture seriously bent FDA rules: the product mentioned in the description is _not_ FDA approved. The company making the product is not a standard drug manufacturer; it is a "compounding pharmacy" -- meaning that it can skirt FDA rules by making batches of drugs for one individual at a time (not making huge batches and selling them to Wallgreen's, CVS, etc.) Since this drug is not widely used, this approach may work. However, the FDA regulations are still a burden in general (and the FDA still has some power to put the kibosh on compounding pharmacy).
See http://marginalrevolution.com/... for more information
Loss of earnings on an investment are still a cost. Normally this figure is calculated on the zero risk rate of return of things like govt bonds or triple A rated stocks.
If you don't see this as a real cost I would like to borrow all your money from you a 0% interest please.