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US Drugmaker Raises Price of Vitamins By More Than 800% (ft.com)
David Crow, reporting for the Financial Times: A US drugmaker is charging almost $300 for a bottle of prescription vitamins that can be bought online for less than $5, in the latest attempt at price gouging in the world's largest healthcare market. Avondale Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Niacor, a prescription-only version of niacin, by 809 per cent last month, taking a bottle of 100 tablets from $32.46 to $295 (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source), according to figures seen by the Financial Times. Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the version approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat high cholesterol. Avondale, a secretive Alabama-based company, put the price of Niacor up shortly after acquiring the rights to the medicine in a so-called "buy-and-raise" deal -- a strategy made famous by Martin Shkreli, the disgraced biotech entrepreneur.
"Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the [overpriced prescription] version"
Translation: Doctors get a kickback from prescribing a vitamin. Clueless patients fill the prescription and send it to their insurance. Everybody loses except doctors and drug companies.
"approved by the US Food and Drug Administration"
Translation: FDA approved vitamins that other vitamin manufacturers either cant get approval for or have to spend a fortune to get.
So drug company gets a government monopoly on a vitamin that doctors are all too eager to prescribe to their patients for $300 a pop.
"some doctors still prefer to use"
If your doctor does this, just find a new doctor. There is no good reason to put up with this.
Congratulations. In just a few words, you managed to betray a staggering amount of ignorance with regards to;
1. vitamins or their "development"
2. socialism
3. life expectancy in "socialist" countries (hint: it's higher and increasing) such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, compared to USA (hint: it's lower and decreasing).
4. health care costs in "socialist" countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, compared to USA.
I suppose we can only blame the - equally - sorry state of education in the USA.
Yeah, but the government forces us all to subsidize the insurance industry (thanks to the Affordable Care Act), so should we be surprised that this happens? They have deep pockets thanks to all of us.
Socialism is an easy fix for cases like this.
Socialism is not an easy fix for cases like this. Socialism caused this case. Namely, it was caused by socialising the cost of inventions by a) granting a government-created monopoly to the inventors of this vitamin and b) creating a government bureaucracy with the power to test medicine for safety and efficacy,
In a socialist system this vitamin wouldn't even be available because it never would have been developed in the first place.
The parts of that claim that are not vague are false.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
You are an idiot.
In European countries etc. you are supposed to get drugs by a prescription. Not by "buying them cheap" in a drug store.
Of course they are available ... but not for "sale" to medicate a kid with out professional supervision, moron.
In Asia, I pay 2 cents per pill for an "obsolete drug" that stops some common forms of cancer metastasis but is unadvertised
Care to name that drug, so the rest of the world can survive cancer metastasises, too?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It was discovered in 1873 at a public university.
I'm really flabbergasted at the trolls on this story. I mean for fucks sake, how do you imply capitalism was responsible for vitamins being "developed?"
In Asia, I pay 2 cents per pill for an "obsolete drug" that stops some common forms of cancer metastasis but is unadvertised, ignored and/or unavailable in most of the world. This saves me $20-30,000 a month in the US for a biotech drug.
Any why is that I wonder? An obsolete miracle drug that stops the spread of common forms of cancer, it is cheap to make, and nobody outside Asia makes it or uses it... Doesn't that sound a little fishy to you? At what point does your bullshit detector go off? Asian 'medicine' is notorious for all sorts of worthless quack treatments and the FDA was created to keep useless, dangerous, and addictive medicine away from people. They aren't perfect, but they do a pretty good job of that.
If you have a real condition that is treated by this 'medicine', I am happy for you and I wish you a long life. But you should really read what you wrote and think carefully about why the entire rest of the world isn't using this miracle drug.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!