CVS Announces Super Cheap Generic Alternative To EpiPen (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Pharmaceutical giant CVS announced Thursday that it has partnered with Impax Laboratories to sell a generic epinephrine auto-injector for $109.99 for a two-pack -- a dramatic cut from Mylan's Epipen two-pack prices, which list for more than $600 as a brand name and $300 as a generic. The lower-cost auto-injector, a generic form of Adrenaclick, is available starting today nationwide in the company's more than 9,600 pharmacies. Its price resembles that of EpiPen's before Mylan bought the rights to the life-saving devices back in 2007 and raised the price repeatedly, sparking outcry. Helena Foulkes, president of CVS Pharmacy, said the company felt compelled to respond to the urgent need for a more affordable alternative. "Over the past year, nearly 150,000 people signed on to a petition asking for a lower-cost epinephrine auto-injector option and millions more were active in social media searching for a solution," she said in a statement. The price of $109.99 for the alternative applies to those with and without insurance, CVS noted. And Impax is also offering a coupon to reduce the cost to just $9.99 for qualifying patients. Also in the press statement, Dr. Todd Listwa of Novant Health, a network of healthcare providers, noted the importance of access to epinephrine auto-injectors, which swiftly reverse rapid-onset, deadly allergic reactions in some. "For these patients, having access to emergency epinephrine is a necessity. Making an affordable epinephrine auto-injector device accessible to patients will ensure patients have the medicine they need, when they need it."

Comments

you mean capitalism works?

[wolfgang_spangler]

That whole supply/demand thing isn't a myth?

Unpossible.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue there is that capitalism wasn't in play.

Due to the barrier to entry posed by drug regulation it cost too much for competitors to enter the same market, and would have remained that way if those assholes had not gone full retard.

Re: you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

Iff the practical economic ability to compete exists, safety regulations are enforced, collusion is prevented, consumers are educated well about their purchase decisions, etc.-- then capitalism works pretty darn great.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Daemonik]

The same free market is why Mylan could raise their prices to $600 or more. Pharmaceutical companies can set whatever price they want, there's no regulations against it, especially during their 5 year patent period.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[scamper_22]

I completely understand the struggles people who are impacted by a disease and there's a cure out of there, but just costs so much.

At the same time, for all it's flaws in the patent system, in the grand scheme of things... the patent lasts like 5 or 10 or 20 years (I don't know). My point is it's not that long.

Let's remember that the drug wasn't there before. That's the price the society pays for a dynamic drug market.

You invent something; it's prohibitively expensive for a bit, then the price drops.

The alternative is... maybe it's not invented.

The former sadly is easy to rail against. The later is a bit more complex.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

The free market enabled it, and broken government regulations allowed it to last so long while CVS made it to market.

Things like the ACA have added miles of red tape into the mix, which is also enabling insurance companies to do exactly what Mylan has done.

Pharmaceutical companies can set whatever price they want, there's no regulations against it, especially during their 5 year patent period.

Quite obviously they can set whatever price they want, period. Mylan has owned the rights to EpiPen since 2007, which was now 10 years ago. EpiPen existed before then, so until someone was able to make it through the red tape with an alternative, they have raked in billions.

What's most amazing is that law makers, on both sides of the aisle, have postured and pretended to care. Yet nothing has been done.

I desperately hope that the Congressional term limit amendment passes. These human piles of garbage need to be sent packing before they get tied up in the powermill.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[sjames]

And all it took was massive public outrage, several years and a Congressional hearing to get one drug long out of patent from outrageous to merely high priced.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[HornWumpus]

None of those things did anything.

CVS is doing it for the money.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Daemonik]

Just because this is the only system you know, don't assume it's the only system that works. Before the 80's when boomers became determined to bleed every possible drop of profit out of the economy, hospitals were run by charities and the worlds most famous doctors worked at university teaching hospitals. Even today the majority of medical breakthroughs happen in universities with government grant money, not pharmaceutical giants.

There is credible evidence that in the unregulated free market once a company achieves market dominance all innovation becomes simple incremental upgrades as research money is transferred to investors. Just look at Apple for a perfect example.

For the people who keep saying regulations keep competition low... yeah, most people are perfectly happy with regulations that require companies to actually prove their devices work, they're well funded and their investors aren't gangsters.. so horrible that the people who invented Shake Weights might not be able to bring us their amazing magnet powered pacemakers I'm sure they were working on.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

The easy solution (same AC here), is for the government to simply rescind the patent and produce the device and distribute it at cost. Eminent domain. It's used for bullshit reasons like building a shopping center; this is the kind of thing it was intended for. These cutpurse companies have already made their millions (billions?), so let them bitch about it.

Maybe we could start funding science again and this type of thing would be public domain to begin with.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[GerryGilmore]

Well, not counting the people who died while "capitalism" reconciled itself with basic human morality...I guess?

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck trying to properly give yourself that injection while suffering from anaphylactic shock, can't breathe, and are about to pass out. If you think it is so easy then would you care to prove it by giving yourself a proper IM injection of saline while being waterboarded?

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[dbIII]

At the same time, for all it's flaws in the patent system, in the grand scheme of things... the patent lasts like 5 or 10 or 20 years (I don't know). My point is it's not that long.

Not that long? Apparently the epipen was invented in the mid 1970s. Most of you here were not even born at that time.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be young. My dad is allergic to bees. His doctor prescribed him a preloaded syringe in the 80s. This is how it used to be done.

Image of an old "bee sting kit":
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/dirtheartwitch/files/2015/07/old-style-sting-kit.jpg

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[OhPlz]

So you've missed the countless news stories about consumers complaining about Mylan not to mention the government hearings and investigations. Sure looks to me that people are pushing it and yet you're still calling them "incredibly lazy". The only thing more they could do is get elected to the legislature to pass a bill themselves. Asswipe. I bet you're the anonymous twat that pisses on the toilet seat and leaves it for the next guy.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Orgasmatron]

Here's the thing though... the poor don't pay $55 for these things. They also didn't pay $1000, or whatever.

The only people who ever paid $1000 or even $55 were middle class guys with Health Savings Accounts that hadn't yet reached their deductible for the year and rich guys stocking the first aid kits on their yachts.

Everyone else either has some sort of medical coverage (what we laughably call "insurance"), or if they are poor and somehow without a medical plan (medicaid is happy to pay for epi pens) the manufacturer would provide a coupon to get it for free or at some nominal cost.

Also, the people making their own are usually spending less than $20 each, which sets the rough ceiling for the free market cost. Mass production can probably bring that cost down to $5 or $10 each. But the free market isn't in charge here. You can't just design, build and sell these things. You need to beg for government approval.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[SuricouRaven]

The drug in this case is not new at all, and certainly not patented. The patent is on the delivery mechanism: The injector that makes it practical and safe for a bystander with no training at all to administer it, or for the patient themselves to do so even if they are currently struggling to breathe and shaking in pain.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[SuricouRaven]

An epipen was. But not this epipen. The original 1970s design is no longer approved by the FDA. The patent that caused this whole mess is on a refinement to the design that makes it safer to use.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[silentcoder]

It's worth noting that, prior to the FDA's establishment, more than 80% of all "medicine" sold in the US were so-called "patent medicine". These drugs, contrary to popular myth, didn't all do nothing - most of them were filled with deadly and addictive substances (usually opium) which the buyers had no idea they were buying. They were marketed for things so completely unrelated that it's physically impossible one drug could treat them all - but they sure made you high.

In short - it was a disaster that killed far more people than it ever cured. In the post-FDA world, this problem has shifted exclusively to those things which the FDA cannot regulate due to congressionmen selling out suplements and homeopathy. A recent study found that 1 in 3 supplements contained no shred whatsoever of the plant they are supposed to have been derived from. Suplements kill people on a daily basis due to dangerous ingredients and a lack of proper warnings about correct usage - seeing as they aren't regulated and nobody is making sure they know what correct usage actually means.

Where regulation does not exist, neither does medicine.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[angel'o'sphere]

The "drug" is only a phancy name for Adrenalin.

Well known and isolated first time 1901 ... there is no "drug entrance barrier" for a 120 year old "medical".

Furthermore, the "pen" costs perhaps $1 to manufacture and the drug itself costs so close to nothing it is hard to say.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[meerling]

It's not the epinephrine, it's the epipen that's got the protection.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

The audio instructions are NOT for you you dumb fuck, they are for the person in the cubicle next to you who finds your swollen unconscious ass on the floor with a half eaten shrimp hanging from your puffy lips, and has no idea how that funny square thing works, or how to use it. You really thought that recording was for you? Seriously, the reason your allergist wasn't impressed is because he/she just knows that your gonna be a dead man due to your own ignorance.

Side note, my kid has one because he might have to rely on another 8 year old to save his life. HE understands what that recording is for, but it has escaped you.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Solandri]

No, they're able to do it for money because Mylan stupidly raised the price. If Mylan had kept the price at what it was before they acquired rights to the EpiPen, it would not have been worth it for a competitor to pay to develop their own pen, put it through the arduous FDA approval process, and put aside money to settle liability lawsuits in case something went wrong. When Mylan raised the price, it suddenly became cost-effective for someone to do all that, so CVS did. They still would've done it even if there had been no outrage, because overpricing something just creates an opportunity for someone else to swoop in and underbid you.

Re: you mean capitalism works?

[Anonymous Coward]

The specific rule about EpiPens was the result of private sector lobbying of the government. Please, tell us more about how corporations aren't attempting to undermine public ownership of the state.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[mjwx]

I completely understand the struggles people who are impacted by a disease and there's a cure out of there, but just costs so much.

At the same time, for all it's flaws in the patent system, in the grand scheme of things... the patent lasts like 5 or 10 or 20 years (I don't know). My point is it's not that long.

Let's remember that the drug wasn't there before. That's the price the society pays for a dynamic drug market.

You invent something; it's prohibitively expensive for a bit, then the price drops.

The alternative is... maybe it's not invented.

The former sadly is easy to rail against. The later is a bit more complex.

You do know that most drugs are actually developed with public money. Universities and government funded research labs. That means we already pay the cost of development, testing, so on and so forth. If it were left up to what was profitable, we'd have almost nothing cured at all.

Also cures and treatments aren't particularly profitable. Big Pharma spends a lot of its research and marketing budget on "lifestyle" drugs which are mostly two things,

1. Hardness pills. Because people with waning libido's will pay anything.
2. Vitamin supplements. Not that these are expensive, but they're so cheap to make because they don't have to pass FDA or equivalent testing. That means they don't have to work, in fact it's better if they dont work because then they cant be accidentally scheduled. They make placebo's a dozen for the penny and sell them a pound for 12 to hipsters and middle aged mothers who think multi-vitamins make them healthy. Their main cost here is advertising, convincing the middle aged mothers that popping a pill each morning compensates for their bad lifestyle choices.

When it comes for a cure for an illness, Big Pharma contributes very little in its development, they just buy up the rights for cheap, manufacture it cheaply and charge a fortune for it. This is why many governments forcibly license patents for local companies to make the drugs.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[GuB-42]

In less "free" countries like the UK and France, the Epipen two-pack (the real one, not the generic) costs $70 and $100 respectively. And that's before healthcare.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[ilctoh]

Anaphylaxis is a acute state where a few Very Bad Things are happening all at once, and very very quickly (over the course of a few minutes.) The key ideas are:

• The air passages in your throat and lungs swell shut so severely that you cannot physically force air in and out. Within a matter of minutes, you will loose the ability to breathe. Period.
• At the same time, your blood vessels are rapidly dilating, causing a dangerous drop in blood pressure. This is why its commonly called anaphylactic shock, because your blood pressure has dropped to the point that the blood cannot adequately perfuse vital organs, namely your brain and your heart.

So between the fact that you can't get oxygen into your lungs, and the fact that your blood can't deliver oxygen to your brain, and the fact that you feel like shit, and know very well that you're in the middle of a life-threatening emergency... you don't really have the capability to perform tasks requiring concentration and fine motor skills, such as would be required to manually draw up a precise dose of medication into a syringe and inject it into yourself.

An EpiPen or similar device is "necessary" because it is an incredibly simple mechanical device that you can operate even while in extremis. You pop a cap off both ends, and push it against your butt check. Its something that anyone, even children, can be trained to do, and to practice (obviously with a dummy device with no needle or medication). And practice until using it practically becomes a reflex, and not something that requires concentration to perform. Its easy enough to do that, even when overcome with anxiety and decrease oxygenation, people can usually manage to work an EpiPen.

I suspect you probably haven't actually experienced anaphylaxis, if people had time to talk to you and for you to convince them that everything was fine. Anaphylaxis requires rapid administration of epinephrine. So you may have had an allergic reaction, maybe even a bad one, but unless you actually experienced the sensation of being unable to force air in and out of your lungs, even when trying with all your might, you haven't truly experienced anaphylaxis. I'd also take issue with your assumption that administering an EpiPen is a "high risk emergency procedure." I suppose there is some risk of local infection, but I'm not aware of any documented cases of infection, at least anything requiring treatment, as a result of an EpiPen. (There are other risks associated with Epi administration, but infection is effectively not one of them.)

So some sort of autoinjector device, be it an EpiPen or a similar competitor, is effectively required to be able to safely manage anaphylaxis.

Re:you mean capitalism works?

[Archangel Michael]

The problem isn't the drug, it is the delivery system is patented. Use a different delivery method (syringe) and you're fine. The problem is that Epipen has not competition. Price point where it is now, will create competition ... and you are seeing that right here.

Remember kids, this is an artificial monopoly with a couple different barriers (patent, FDA approval) that prevent competition.

Former CVS pharmacist here

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm now clinical cardiac pharmacist, but I still follow the industry news.

This is a generic for the Adrenaclick, not the Epi-pen. It's the same drug but it not AB rated. It's easily fixable by a call from the filling pharmacist to the prescriber of they write for Epi-pen. We do it all the time.

Re:Former CVS pharmacist here

[DaHat]

I'm the parent of a kid whose doctor has said we should have a pair of Epipens around and had the joy of paying quite a few for them out of pocket for a few year.

I was slightly annoyed when I learned of the Adrenaclick as no one had mentioned it previously at the doctors office, though a quick call to them got the Rx changed to the Adrenaclick which is an order of magnitude cheaper than the Epipen... and a generic version is also welcome news.

Re:Former CVS pharmacist here

[guruevi]

For those of you who have no experience with the medical industry:

AB rating is to indicate the FDA considers this an equivalent substitute. There are currently at least 3 "EpiPen" systems on the market, EpiPen, Adrenaclick and Twinject and I think Auvi-Q is also entering the market again they all are auto-injectors giving 0.3 mg or 0.15 mg of Epinephrine, yet the FDA has rated these 'others' as BX meaning they cannot be interchanged (legally) without a brand new prescription even though they all do the same thing.

So yes, there are alternatives to the EpiPen but the medical industry has made sure that the consumer is not informed when the market breaks.

Re:Former CVS pharmacist here

[drinkypoo]

I have good health insurance, so I got 2x EpiPens for cheap, and my insurance company had to pay ~$500-600. If you want nice things: get good health insurance.

Nom nom nom this cake is delicious

If we've learned anything from this ~6 year Obamacare experiment it's that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Romneycare was always intended as a handout to insurance companies.

Re:Good for CVS

[Motherfucking Shit]

Can you see ANYONE buying the Mylan epipen now even if they lower the price back to what it was?

They're out there; some woman interviewed on NBC Nightly News this evening said she won't trust anything other than the original EpiPen.

Good first step...

[LaughingRadish]

This is a good first step to reducing excessive prices on lifesaving / life-sustaining drugs. The next is to tackle the monopolies that exist for insulin, particularly the long-acting variety. There is only one "legal" manufacturer of Lantus in the US. A single vial costs on the open market is around $135.

Ready...

[guygo]

I see Mylan's PR people have their "I find the Adrenaclick impossible to use" shills ready to go. We can expect them to spend millions on trying to discredit the competitor's much cheaper alternative. Heaven forfend they spend any of that money reducing the price of their own product.

Re:Ready...

[Onuma]

I wouldn't put it past them.

Here are 3 quick demonstrations. They're literally all as easy as the next: unsheath the autoinjector, remove safety caps, depress the needle into the thigh for ~5-10 seconds, then call 911.

https://youtu.be/GOp1Rb5m04o?t...

You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[cirby]

You see, a "free market" is actually free, not controlled by government-run bureaucracies that make it very difficult for medical device manufacturers to produce something that ISN'T covered by patents any more.

You know, like epinephrine injectors.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bitch when you have to show that your product actually works and doesn't kill people.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[Ol Olsoc]

You see, a "free market" is actually free, not controlled by government-run bureaucracies that make it very difficult for medical device manufacturers to produce something that ISN'T covered by patents any more.

You know, like epinephrine injectors.

But I thought that America was deep in the throes of Regulations that force prices to be high.

So if we are over regulated, yet CVS has managed to bring the price down, then I don't know that a free market argument applies, because FDA, O'Blama, and Franklin Roosevelt.

After all - if a free market doesn't exist, how can it work it's magic?

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[HornWumpus]

It's 'free enough', absolutes don't exist outside the minds of theoreticians.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[Ol Olsoc]

It's 'free enough', absolutes don't exist outside the minds of theoreticians.

And ideologues.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[knightghost]

Speaking of "free enough" - where do I get the ones for $9.99? I'd like to add one to my emergency kit for whoever needs it.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[PopeRatzo]

Nobody who actually wants to run a company would ever settle for a system without patents, copyrights or some form of IP protection

Companies existed long before patents and IP. Almost two centuries, in fact.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[Tranzistors]

Indeed they did, and they protected their “rights” with guilds, gunboats and monopoly rights from monarchs. I personally would not want to have FedEx with private army.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[PopeRatzo]

Indeed they did, and they protected their “rights” with guilds, gunboats and monopoly rights from monarchs.

So, what you're saying is, corporations have always required government intervention and labor organization to succeed. Duly noted.

At least now we can dispense with the notion that there has ever been anything like a "free market".

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[Required Snark]

You are too young to for this to be part of your personal experience, but there once was a drug called Thalidomide. It was sold for morning sickness and caused severe birth defects. Thousands of infants died and tens of thousands were born with deformed limbs. This was in the mid 1950's and caused a massive change in how drugs were tested. Thalidomide is still used, but not by pregnant women.

More recently there are significant problems with metal on metal joint replacements. For some designs the failure rate is 75% to 100%. And this was after FDA approval was granted.

So is the requirement for government approval the "bureaucracy" you are talking about? If so, I'm sure you can find somewhere in the world where you can get a completely unregulated major medical procedure, say involving surgery. Before you go, just leave a contact address so we know where to send the condolences for your funeral. I, at least, would consider your demise to be suicide.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[Tranzistors]

So, what you're saying is, corporations have always required government intervention and labor organization to succeed.

I would like to agree, but I'm not sure what you mean by “government intervention”. Do you consider modern law enforcement as government intervention? For example, guilds could be seen as [city] government tool to protect industry and keep prices high, but if there is no [formal] government, craftsmen would most likely make their own Mafia style organization, with burning down of competition. Would this type of labor organization be more free?

At least now we can dispense with the notion that there has ever been anything like a "free market".

It depends. If we go by wikipedia article on free market, global stock and commodities markets are pretty free. When it comes to every-day stuff we buy, asymmetry of “market power, bargaining power and information” makes it nigh impossible to have a truly “free market”, and ofttimes governments try to make markets more free than they naturally would.

P.S. I forgot to add trade secrets.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[aevan]

Wouldn't law enforcement be government intervention, by definition of 'whose laws are being enforced'?

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[Maxo-Texas]

They expire.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Looks like the 18 months is aggressive tho. Might depend on storage conditions too.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[meerling]

Among other conditions. A free market is essentially a utopian theory for economics, totally unrealistic despite it being desirable.
It also assumes there are no real barriers to market entry so anyone can decide to market something if they think they can do it better.
That is so far from reality, it's virtually insane.
Anyway, it's a neat idea, but it's not a viable one.

Re:You don't know what a free market is, do you?

[networkBoy]

generally (and the exceptions are a bitch) an expired drug is safe but its efficacy is reduced. For some products that rate of reduction is low and an expired product can be good for a year or two after the date (Liquamycin for example), for other products the rate of decline is non linear and fast, so are only good a couple months past date with any real efficacy (Covexin®-8. CDT comes to mind).

Epi seems to be between the two, within some limits:

EpiPen's shelf life has been limited by the chemistry of the drug inside it. Epinephrine is an old and cheap medication, but it's also notoriously finicky. If exposed to light, heat or air, it can degrade, turning rust colored.
The FDA-approved label warns that if the liquid in the pen is discolored, it should be discarded: "Epinephrine solution deteriorates rapidly on exposure to air or light, turning pink from oxidation to adrenochrome and brown from the formation of melanin."

Great! so there's a way to tell, separate from the date!

But what about an expired EpiPen that looks perfectly normal?

The little published data that exists shows that the drug degrades over time -- and color is not an accurate way to gauge whether the epinephrine inside is still good.

well crap, maybe not.

One study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in 2000, examined EpiPens one to 90 months after the expiration date. Most were not discolored, but the epinephrine content decreased over time. The study stated that it was best to use EpiPens that had not expired, but found that the pens contained at least two-thirds of the intended dose up to a year after expiration. Even a sub-optimal dose could be better than nothing in a life-or-death situation, the authors concluded.

So...
Looks like if stored in *ideal* conditions the pen will last more than 18 months, but under likely real-world conditions 18 months is it.
FWIW, elsewhere I found that the manufacturer had targeted 27 months, but data only supported 19 months, they went with 18. That's not a large guard band.

A free market doesn't have patents

[rsilvergun]

As the saying goes: We've already established what you are. Now we're just negotiating.

What lesson is that?

[rsilvergun]

they made millions while waiting for CVS to put this out. So what lesson? Maybe charge more?

Re:What lesson is that?

[HornWumpus]

The lesson to smart monopolists is 'don't charge the full tilt monopoly price unless you want to attract competition'.

Had their excess profit been less than the short term amortized cost of entering the market, they could have milked it for decades.

Charging more would have drawn competition faster.

Re:What lesson is that?

[Motherfucking Shit]

Had their excess profit been less than the short term amortized cost of entering the market, they could have milked it for decades.

American capitalism hasn't thought that far forward in a long time. The CEO has an EPS target to meet so his golden parachute kicks in. Next quarter is someone else's problem, and the next decade might as well not even exist.

"Super Cheap"?

[0100010001010011]

Still $55/pop. I would have gone with 'cheaper'. "Super Cheap" is a bit of hyperbole.

FYI: Epinephrine is $4.79/vial.

Re:"Super Cheap"?

[guruevi]

Someone already did: https://fourthievesvinegar.org...

Now let's fix the stupid laws....

[Lumpy]

That make it so you have to have a prescription to buy them in the USA.
Canada they are over the counter and I buy them for my first aid Kit. it is 100% stupid to not allow anyone to buy them and make sure they can help to save lives.

Re:Good for CVS

[CaptainDork]

This.

For many years, my wife insisted on brand-name aspirin, changing products in step with the most convincing advertisements.

Re:Good for CVS

[PRMan]

Yes. All the school districts that have 5-year exclusive contracts.

$8 vs $100 vs $600

[primebase]

For something that *costs* about $8, even $100 is not "super cheap"... http://www.mercurynews.com/201...

Re: Good for CVS

[Anonymous Coward]

I convinced my wife to stop buying name brands after showing her they are mostly made in Bangladesh and other third world countries with poor product safety records, while most store brands are made right in our own city (Montreal, Canada)

Re:And mathematicians, including

[Ol Olsoc]

Including programmers

The problem with the free market, and lassaize-faire capitalism is that it is destroyed by the first group that has major success. Becuse the greed that fuels the market can become very destructive as people with pathological levels of it inevitably take over. And the simplistic early agriculture type arguments for it just don't work in a highy technical and mechanized world. You gotta have some brakes on any "ism". And the reason is, ideology doesn't work at all. Idealogues end up going insane. Its how we have people arguing that we have to put the overpaid American worker out of a job, ignoring that laid off people don't buy the shit that's being produced. Capitalism with some restraints? Now that works a trick.

Re:Good for CVS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, epipen does not have the best injection mech, only the best known brand name. If you want to waste $500 on your loved one, how about a palm reading or witch doctor? I'm sure you love them and think they are worth the extra money.

At least 20 years, sometimes more

[Shane_Optima]

the patent lasts like 5 or 10 or 20 years (I don't know)

Uh, it's 20 years, sometimes including an additional exclusivity period of up to 5 years (or apparently up to 10 years for certain antibiotics) offered by the FDA in some situations such that competitors' products will not be approved during that time. The exclusivity period isn't guaranteed to run consecutive to the patent period, although the drug companies obviously attempt to engineer it that way if possible.

I just thought that was worth clarifying. Like, "I'm don't recall if Joe was two or four or eight feet tall [and it turns out he might've been as much as twelve feet tall]"... that's not something you should hand-wave away. Yes, it's a complicated situation, but the government-created barriers to entry here (of which drug patents are just a tiny piece) are significant. We do need some barriers, obviously, along with some method of incentivization, but given the high or wildly fluctuating prices of some generics when there doesn't appear to be much of a marginal cost involved (I'm not necessarily saying that's the case with the epi-pens), the system as a whole does not appear to be functioning terribly well.

Re:Still Expensive

[raburton]

UK NHS drug tariff price for genuine Epi-Pen £52.90 for a pair (that's approx. what the NHS actually pays), actual cost to patient £8.40 (standard NHS prescription charge, exemptions apply for those on benefits, etc.) The NHS may be systematically being dismantled by the government and the media, and it's hated by Americans because they have been told it's socialist and pushed propaganda to support their country's alternative view on healthcare, and yes it does have real problems too (most of which could be solved by proper funding, but see my first point), but this is an example of why a proper healthcare system is a good thing to have. We are going to miss it in another 10 years when it's gone and find ourselves in the mess America is in.

What

[Dunbal]

$110 is still way too expensive. Syringe = $0.05. Epinephrine = $2.

Re:Good for CVS

[silentcoder]

When people say something is "logically true" so they don't need evidence- they are almost always defending a position that, when you look at the evidence, turns out to be utterly false.

So for example it is "logically true" that gun control won't stop mass shootings because "anybody crazy enough to go on a shooting spree won't let gun control laws stop him getting an illegal gun" - it seems even more true if you consider that no gun-control country has managed to completely eradicate trafficking in illegal guns. There's just one problem - the logic doesn't match reality. The US has had more mass shootings in the past 20 years than the next 30 countries combined... BY MORE THAN TWO TIMES. The next thirty countries combined had 22 mass shootings alltogether, the US had 48 in the same time. Now why would this happen ? Why is the logic wrong ? Because it fails to consider the facts. Fact is, mass shooters are almost never career criminals. They have no contacts in the criminal underworld - and buying illegal guns is not easy. The guys selling them won't just sell them to anybody who shows up at the dockyard -the risk of it being an undercover cop is too high. You need people in the underworld who knows you and will vouch for you. You need to know where to go, who to talk to, what not to say... it's just not that simple.

It's "logical" that reducing government spending must also reduce government debt. Except that every time in history a government has reduced spending their debt went UP - there's literally no example of the "logical" prediction happening - not ever. When you consider ALL the facts - it starts to make sense. Every expense is somebody's income, this just just as true of government spending. Government cuts spending, that cuts income from citizens, and from the people they would have bought from. Most government revenue comes from taxes on income - so you cut a huge chain of income, that means cutting your own revenue by a massive amount. It's been mathematically proven that the revenue loss from austerity MUST always be greater than the savings, it's impossible for it it not to be. So in reality, austerity turns out to be about as effective a way of bringing down debt as burning your paycheck to save on your heating bill.

Lots of things are logical - but don't hold up to scrutiny because the evidence prove that the logic is, in fact, wrong because it didn't include all the relevant factors.

Your logic falls in the same category. The headlines are filled, daily, with massive scandals by big name brands- they happen constantly. So why is your logic wrong ? Because, it turns out, the risk of getting caught doing something horrible is relatively low, and usually you can get away with it for several years before you get caught. So why not do it? Any harm to the brand will be years away, after you made billions in profits, more than enough to cover whatever may be lost in future due to brand-harm, and anyway that will be some other CEO's problem to deal with, you'll have walked out with your golden parachute long before the crows come home to roost.
Where DOES It happen ? When the bad things are done by somebody else, and the knowledge of it happening is already leaked. The tylenol poisoning case was such an example. Tylenol didn't poison their own medicine, they had every incentive to do a massive recall to prevent harm to the brand - because they were not profiting from the bad thing that caused the harm and it was ALREADY DISCOVERED. But this rare - the vast majority of horrible things done in the world are done by corporations to their own customers and the second most common variety are done by corporations to their own workers. The only reason that's the order is because corporations usually have more customers than workers - it has nothing to do with the severity of the horrible things.

Re:And mathematicians, including

[Solandri]

The problem with the free market, and lassaize-faire capitalism is that it is destroyed by the first group that has major success. Becuse the greed that fuels the market can become very destructive as people with pathological levels of it inevitably take over. And the simplistic early agriculture type arguments for it just don't work in a highy technical and mechanized world.

There are so many examples which disprove this that I'm amazed it was modded up: IBM PC, Compaq, Apple iPhone, 3dfx, Blackberry, Palm Pilot, Nokia, GeoCities, Myspace, Wordperfect, Lotus, Silicon Graphics, Kodak, Blockbuster, Sony Walkman, Sears, Pan Am, Schwinn, Motorola, Sun, DEC, Yahoo, Xerox copiers, Nintendo (except they managed to claw their way back with the Wii).

All of these were market leaders who in many cases once owned 80% or more of their respective markets, til they were out-competed and were replaced as king of the hill. Contrary to what you claim, it's harder to maintain a dominant market position in a highly technical and mechanized world. The rapid pace of technological progress means it's very easy to fall behind if you misstep (Yahoo, Sony, Pan Am, Blockbuster), or get lazy (Xerox, Kodak, Myspace, Blackberry), or get out-maneuvered (Nintendo - both ways, WordPerfect, Lotus, Apple iPhone, IBM PC).

The free market works most of the time. Monopolies are the exception, not the norm, and I'm fine with bashing those with government regulation when they happen. Believing that monopolies are inevitable and thus everything must be regulated, is just as foolish as believing everything will work just fine if there is no regulation.

Insulin

[DarthVain]

I don't think it is quite as simple as even that. Take the drug Insulin for example. Discovered and essentially patented by a university for 1$ with the altruistic thinking that by allowing drug companies to produce it royalty free, more patients that desperately need the drug would be able to afford it. Didn't quite work out that way. Some interesting articles below.

http://other98.com/insulins-in...

http://insulinnation.com/treat...

Re:And mathematicians, including

[Anonymous Coward]

The free market works most of the time. Monopolies are the exception, not the norm, and I'm fine with bashing those with government regulation when they happen. Believing that monopolies are inevitable and thus everything must be regulated, is just as foolish as believing everything will work just fine if there is no regulation.

But monopolies are inevitable. The funny thing about Capitalism and free markets is that the participants are incentivised to destroy the system. Free markets require competition, free information, and low cost of entry, among other things. Individual businesses are incentivised to crush the competition, keep information secret, and erect barriers to entry. Thus Capitalism contains the seeds of it's own destruction and must be saved from itself.