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Price-gouging Maker of EpiPen Literally Said That Critics Can Go Fuck Themselves (gizmodo.com)
Back in August of 2016, the pharmaceutical company Mylan came under fire for jacking up prices of the EpiPen from $57 in 2007 to roughly $600 in 2016. The public backlash has been significant. Gizmodo adds: But the chairman of Mylan has a message for any critics: Go fuck yourself. Well, at least that's what we think he said. The New York Times has a new article about the fact that prices for the live-saving allergy medication haven't actually come down since last year. And the article has a rather strange way of describing the attitude of Mylan chairman Robert Coury. This is how the New York Times describes Coury's reaction to critics of Mylan's price gouging: "Mr. Coury replied that he was untroubled. He raised both his middle fingers and explained, using colorful language, that anyone criticizing Mylan, including its employees, ought to go copulate with themselves. Critics in Congress and on Wall Street, he said, should do the same. And regulators at the Food and Drug Administration? They, too, deserved a round of anatomically challenging self-fulfillment."
I've never been in anaphylactic shock, but I would imagine it would be particularly difficult to engage in the suggested activity while suffering from an allergic reaction.
Perhaps someone could correct me though if I'm wrong.
The epipen isn't the only player in the market, its popularity is due to schools support for it, as an easy way to administer the drug. If it is too expensive the schools should consider a replacement. And have this guy just blame critics in the poor house with a stack of epipens that he will sell at a loss.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And then "well at least that's what we think he said." Oops. Your bombastic use of a word immediately discredits you. However, since it does appear that the article is saying that he actually said that, perhaps the term "reportedly" could have been used instead of literally.
Time to talk to Canada for prices.
At some point, this orifice at the negative end of the esophagus will be responsible for the untimely demise of a person who is mourned by someone with a rather low tolerance for bullshit of this kind, and this person of limited longanimity will rip said orifice a suitable replacement for the aforementioned orifice.
Preferably slowly, painfully and streamed via a service that many people can enjoy.
And nothing of value will be lost. Except maybe the YouTube video of it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
At least one chairman who has balls to say what he actually thinks instead of hiding behind insincere excuses. On the other hand I hope he won't cry when his critics start using stronger language as well.
Now that patent rights are terminated with any domestic or foreign sale, per the SCOTUS Lexmark decision, pretty soon the market is going to be able to tell Coury to go fuck himself.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'll be in the minority here, but that's bad ass. A company leader that doesn't do PR is a breath of fresh air, even if he is a raging asshole.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Price controls would be needed to implement single payer. Knowing that 100% of your customers have insurance that pays 100% of the cost of medications is a green light for this type of price gouging.
Why? Let his company go under as people buy other products.
... is there another reason that is conveniently not being mentioned?
No one is forced to buy the product. I suppose the real question is why would he want to price the product out of the market. And don't say greed. If it was as simple as that my neighborhood bar would charge $500 for a pint instead of $5.
If the bar owner raised his price so high wouldn't you wonder why? I would (OBVIOUSLY) stop going there and I can't see anyone else going there either. So
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
There is a difference between something being legal and something being a good idea.
The pharma and biotech industries as a whole want to avoid price regulations but this kind of behavior heavily pushes politicians to look at passing laws to do that for consumer protection. That is why when Martin Shkreli raised the price of an AIDS medication by 5000% another company started to manufacture the same drug and sold it at only slightly above cost. The intention was to stave off new regulations by showing they could deal with bad actors as an industry and not harm patients in the process. My understanding is that the same thing is being worked on right now to get some more auto-injectors approved and drop the price way down in order to prevent tis from being used to regulate.
The problem is that some drugs are seriously expensive to make. Some of them require some difficult processes that making enough of the drug for one person for one year can cost $50K and that does not cover the cost of R&D that went into it. Typically those drugs would then sell for $100K or so. If you have price caps then many drugs would just not be made at all because they are at the edge of our technology and we don't know of a cheaper way to make them. Especially with biotech drugs you have to connect together tens of thousands of atoms essentially perfectly. You need to make on the order of 10^24 of the molecules and your defect rate has to be 0.001%. There is nothing else on our planet that is manufactured to those kinds of standards and it is HARD and EXPENSIVE. The prices are coming down on them as technology gets better but mostly what happens is that even harder molecules are made.
It really bothers me when I see a company that makes a drug for $0.50 and then sells it for $100+ because it puts the entire industry at risk. I don't want to see DNA, RNA and protein based drugs going away because they no longer fit within price caps.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
I don't have a problem with doctors and other end-providers doing well for themselves. I also don't have a problem with people who invent things making some real money from their inventions. After all, those who invent life-saving devices and those that have the knowledge and skills to save lives are doing some pretty amazing things. What I do have a problem with is all of the middlemen, that act to hand-off something, without really contributing, and siphoning-off their cut as they do it.
I suppose this is why I support single-payer. I've heard arguments about choice in one's insurance company, I've heard arguments about being being worried about being denied treatment for something. Thing of it is, most people do not have choice in their insurance providers as they're limited to what their employers provide, and those insurers themselves limit the doctors available for affordable pricing (ie, which doctors have come to terms with the insurer), and the companies themselves already have things like stipulations against pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on expenditures per patient.
As far as I am concerned, if we already have numerous redundant bureaucracies that are bloated, inefficient, and expensive as a side-effect of being profit-driven, then why don't we do away with that and go to a system with a single bureaucracy? Even if it is bloated and inefficient, it's still only one bloated and inefficient bureaucracy, and if it's not profit-driven then it will probably cost less to operate than the numerous private insurance companies. And if proper separation is reintroduced then suddenly basically all providers are available.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You think that the government would be less bloated? We are talking about the government. They created the concept of ineffectual bloat and then expanded, enhanced and perfected it. The government home of the $50,000 hammer.
No, private industry with a profit motive will always be more efficient than government bureaucrats with no motive at all for efficiency and service.
Take a look at the deadly mess that is the VA and tell me single payer is better.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Canada has price controls
No, private industry with a profit motive will always be more efficient
Will it?
Take a look at the deadly mess that is the VA and tell me single payer is better.
Everything around the military is always crap. You can justify anything by pounding on war drums. And hey, while we're at it, the VA (at least its health care arm) is one of the things which can go away if we have a single payer health care system.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You think that the government would be less bloated? We are talking about the government. They created the concept of ineffectual bloat and then expanded, enhanced and perfected it. The government home of the $50,000 hammer. No, private industry with a profit motive will always be more efficient than government bureaucrats with no motive at all for efficiency and service. Take a look at the deadly mess that is the VA and tell me single payer is better.
Are you talking about the bloat private companies invented to charge to the gov because they can get away with it? It's always going to be cheaper and better to have public services, if for nothing else no one is looking to profit off it and any extra money made goes back into the service or others. It's in private industry with a profit motive it's all but encouraged to cut service and increase price. If you truly think that's better you're deluded. I don't know about your VA but I'd be willing to bet most of it's problems will be caused by subcontracting to private companies.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
We just picked up the generic Adrenaclick from CVS for $12 after they automatically applied a $100 off coupon (even without insurance). The major difference between Adrenaclick and EpiPen is that Adrenaclick doesn't retract the needle after injection. If Mylan's pricing nonsense continues I think we'll see more people being trained on Adrenaclick than EpiPen just due to the cost.
when their patent expires.
It's not even their patent. Pfizer owns the patent and manufactures them. Mylan only holds the exclusive rights to market EpiPens in the USA.
It's time to drag both Pfizer, Mylan and the FDA into court on federal antitrust charges and collusion to keep other products and market channels available.
Have gnu, will travel.
FYI: The Veterans Administration is not a part of, any military branch. It is a separate and distinct federal agency.
And no, single-payer won't make it go away... single-payer would simply use the VAMC infrastructure as a handy pre-existing government bureaucracy from which to run (and eventually own) the whole single-payer healthcare system. Path of least resistance and all that.
Of course, there will be promises that they'll make the VA more efficient, more responsive, less hazardous to life and limb, etc... but honestly, since when has any government agency done any improvements beyond expanding their regulatory power and budget?
(Trust me, as the spouse of a disabled veteran, I can tell you right now that you do *not* want the VAMC running everyone's healthcare.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Most of the bloat that occurred is because for decades, Medicare/Medicaid happily paid what they were charged, without question. Same scam that universities are now partaking of with government-backed student loans, come to think of it.
Quite a few years back though, this no longer became the case with Medicare - to the point where nowadays, most doctors refuse to take on new Medicare patients.
Funny thing, though... most hospitals charge exorbitant rates because a huge chunk of their indigent ER/inpatient patients either skip the bill (with fake signatures/addresses) because they're illegals, or because of later bankruptcy dumping the debt so there's no payment to the hospital, or because of...?
So, as a result, the high costs are there to pad the budget in order to absorb the inevitable losses (for those times when Jose Illegal and/or Joe Tweaker goes to the hospital with a fake name/addy to get himself fixed-up). If you walk into any ER waiting room, you can see the second reason why... too many people treat it like normal folks treat a primary care provider - going in for sniffles, scrapes, and similar minor/non-fatal things (but complain of 'chest pains' to cut their waiting time.) ER time and resources are expensive, but ER bills are the ones most often not paid (and Medicare pays damned little as a percentage of each bill.)
This, folks, is (partially) why you have $200.00 aspirins showing up on the bill, eh?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
My friend gave it to me as he was dying. It seemed very important to him that I have it.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I don't see why there is even a discussion about this. Market forces should already have reduced Mylan's sales of EpiPen to ZERO. There are alternatives. MUCH cheaper alternatives! Let Mylan ask whatever they want, just don;t buy from them.
Anyone with a prescription can purchase Adrenaclick(the EpiPen generic) for $60 from CVS Drugs. With this coupon.
The real ignorance and travesty is that ANYONE still buys EpiPen.
The only thing private industry is efficient at is maximizing profit which implicitly involves exploitation and cost-cutting. If government didn't work at all, the country would be in shambles. Overall, the government works fairly well, and is accountable to the populace. Private industry is only accountable to their shareholders, whose motives are always just "more profit". There are actually a lot of people in government who have the peoples' interests at heart, believe it or not.
Nationalize the pharmaceutical industry.
And go back to 1997, and BAN ALL C(ONSUMER_TARGETED ADVERTISING OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS. They spend *billions* on that, and what, you're supposed to tell your doctor what to prescribe?
With all the mergers, they're spending a lot less on actual research. And the research they are doing - a year or two ago, India refused to grant a patent to a major drug, because it was no advance at all on the existing drug... that was about to go out of patent.
Hell, go look at the wikipedia entry on quinene, for malaria - how much it costs to make, and the price in the US.
That's their big research. Basic research? Try universities, a lot of whom get funding for that... from the biggest and best (IMO) medical and bioscientific research organization in the world: the US NIH.
What most people cheering on the private market don't realize is that your tax dollars are paying for 90% of the sales of these auto-injectors. Schools and other public institutions are required by law to buy these auto-injectors to have on hand in the event someone has an allergic reaction. Much like sovaldi and the other recent record price drugs where 80%+ of the sales are to medicaid and government institutions (prisons) these drug prices are only possible because the government isn't allowed to negotiate pricing like the rest of the world.
Your tax dollars are what's being gouged. There is a simple fix, that is to remember that patents and copyrights are NOT capitalism. They are actually a government enforced monopoly that runs completely counter to a free market. The simple fix is to remove those government mandated monopolies in situations like this. There are also a better secondary fixes like allowing the import of drugs and medical devices which would allow these institutions to purchase the exact same thing from a country where it's sold for 1/100th the price.
It's comments like the chairman of Mylan that make me support the idea of removing their patents when they do shit like this. But the easiest and simplest fix is to allow government programs like Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate prices. In no time at all US drug and device prices would return to levels the rest of the world pays. But the republican party has been blocking such a fix for near on 20 year now, the result being US tax payers are being fleeced to line the pockets of drug executives.
Maybe we need a nice 150% excise tax on the salaries of drug company executives if any of their drugs sell for more than 110% of what Canadians pay.
I would expect that medicare and/or medicaid would actually form the basis for the expansion of universal payment for a single-payer system. The VA system has two missions, one of which is to directly provide care. That aspect has been shown to be fundamentally broken in several VA facilities in the country. It would make more sense to expand how coverage for payment for service is handled as a federal program than the actual care itself.
If anything it might make sense to reconsider the nature of the VA system once single-payer is implemented. First, it might make more sense for veterans with conditions that are a result of military service to have medical care through the branch of service instead of a distinct civilian agency, and second, a lot of what the VA provides would not be needed if single-payer was instituted anyway. The reconfigured remainder that had been the VA would be in a better position to focus on conditions that are much rarer and found predominately among veterans like the results of being exposed to Agent Orange, or Asbestos, or Decayed Uranium, while many of the services that veterans lacking-insurance now use them for would be shifted to other parts of the system.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
http://www.ipprospective.com/c...
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
There's no single solution to the problem, and the mandate for care regardless of the ability to pay is part why emergency rooms are treated this way.
In a single-payer system with universal coverage paid-for by taxes that replace the current costs paid to maintain private insurance, basically everyone is covered and doctors don't have a lot of choice about participating. If they don't participate then they probably don't have incomes except for a few highly-specialized doctors catering as private physicians to individual patrons that are paying cash. As a result, just about all doctors could take just about all patients, and hospitals would be in a position to refer non-emergency patients to the appropriate clinic. It might even be in the hospitals' interests to set up their own conventional urgent-care clinics for walk-ins that don't need actual emergency, life-saving care, and for the triage process to help as a filter.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Water treatment, purification, and distribution. Trash collection. Sewer service. In my state they operate a damn-good highway maintenance program, admittedly with the actual repair jobs being contracted, but the project management being centrally coordinated by a bureaucrat.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
At least one chairman who has balls to say what he actually thinks instead of hiding behind insincere excuses. On the other hand I hope he won't cry when his critics start using stronger language as well.
What you call "balls" I define as Corporate Arrogance, and quite frankly, I'm sick and fucking tired of it.
It's amazing how we have anti-monopoly laws on the books, and yet we don't really do a damn thing from stopping mega-corps from buying 90% of the market, and colluding with the remaining 10% that comprise the remaining mega-corps. True competition is dead or dying, and the arrogant attitudes demonstrated by the worlds largest corporations prove it.
I can only hope that 10 companies worth of real competition are birthed from this cocksuckers arrogance to compete directly against the EpiPen, and he's forced to eat his words standing in front of the shareholders explaining why revenue has tanked.
Capitalism and Greed does not justify this kind of shit attitude that has created Corporate Arrogance. And it's high time consumers stop bending over and simply taking it when it happens.
Bust his useless patent and let the generic manufacturers flood the market. The patent on such an obvious copy of the US Army nerve gas antidote injector was wrongly issued anyway.
They cancelled Bayer's Asprin patents after WWII, to punish Bayer for helping the Nazis, so there is already some legal precedent.
Why do you think it could be challenged?
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the court affirmed that Congress is sovereign in settings patent and copyright terms.
If Congress is sovereign in lengthening the term(s), would not Congress be sovereign in setting any terms they choose to zero?
From the wiki: "However, the major argument for the act that carried over into the case was that the Constitution specified that Congress only needed to set time limits for copyright, the length of which was left to their discretion."
If zero doesn't work, how about 3 months?
How's life in the hypocrite lane?