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China Negotiating For Cheaper Cancer Drugs (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the supply-and-demand dept.

hackingbear writes: "China's medical insurance regulator will begin negotiations with domestic and overseas pharmaceutical companies to lower prices of cancer drugs in a bid to cut the financial burden on patients," reports Reuters. "The State Medical Insurance Administration said it was preparing to include more cancer drugs on its list of medicines eligible for reimbursement, and said 10 foreign and eight domestic pharmaceutical companies had expressed a willingness to work with the authority."

Unlike India, or what we may have been told, China enforces pharmaceutical patents rigorously. Recently, the Chinese box office hit Dying to Survive, which told the real life story of a leukemia patient/businessman put on trial due to smuggling imitation drugs to help fellow patients who cannot pay the exorbitant cost of a drug produced by a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, has brought in huge revenues and rave reviews since the movie was released on July 5. Last year, China forced two rounds of NRDL negotiations after seven years of stasis. More than a dozen cancer drugs, including AstraZeneca's Iressa and Roche's Herceptin, are now covered by the country's insurance program, but only after the companies agreed to huge discounts -- a typical move trading lower prices for higher volume. Demand for Herceptin, for example, surged after the discount and triggered a national shortage.

86 comments

  1. Australia by quarrel · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is how Australia does it.

    The PBS - Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - provides heavily subsidised prescription meds to any with a script from a Doctor (and super cheap for certain categories like Age Pensioners, disabled etc).

    The catch is, pharmaceutical companies have to try and get their drugs on the PBS, and to do that they have to offer up evidence that their drug is better than those currently on the PBS, and quantify the extra benefit. For some drugs (like psychiatric meds), just show ANY benefit over placebo is a huge hurdle. Then quantifying the benefit to tax payers to justify what gets paid per pill.

    Sometimes it limits the quick adoption of new drugs (although there are other paths for experimental treatments), but the main thing it provides is a science based monopoly buyer. The drug companies don't get to artificially court demand, and extract super high margins without showing they're worth it.

    Oh, and it is illegal to advertise prescription meds in Australia. None of these ads full of older gents "Talk to your Doctor today about Cialis."

    The system is very effective.

    1. Re:Australia by Saithe · · Score: 1

      We have a very similar system in Sweden.

    2. Re: Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Same in the UK. This is how national health services are supposed to work. Leave it to corporations and consumer choice? You get the USA's hyper-exploitative system where patients are stuffed full of questionable drugs, many of which they probably don't even need.

    3. Re: Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, about that choice...No we do not have choice or a free market here in the US. The sheep are a captive audience exploited by the congress. Our representatives actively work against our benefit. So please, stop with this free market choice lies.

    4. Re: Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well from what we've all seen over here, your health industry will be conforming with that of Russia's within a year or so.
      Congratulations on not electing someone semi-intelligent.

    5. Re:Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Generics are A-OK and are preferred over patented drugs. The PBS also uses its buying power to negotiate hard on patented drug prices.

      Remember that in the USA, pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than they do on research and development. With the ban on advertising prescription medication in Australia that's another point of leverage in price negotiations.

    6. Re:Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We do get ads for prescription medications, but rather than naming the product they just state "New options are available for treating your erectile dysfunction. Ask your doctor today about them."

      But yes, nowhere near as bad as the USA where they show minutes-long TV ads that spend half their time enumerating possible side-effects to a montage of happy people enjoying life.

    7. Re:Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember that in the USA, pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than they do on research and development.

      This is true only if you don't include in the "R&D Spending" the cost of, often very expensive, acquisitions of small (some startup) companies which have developed a drug at least to the point of showing very promising results. Often these companies are "one drug (or one set of drugs) wonders". Sure, some of the heavy lifting in later stage trials remains to be done by the big pharma, but the patent (and risk of early development) is owned by the investors.

      Of course, for every such acquisition, there are many failed startup companies whose investors lost their entire investment. The successful small/startup gets funded in hopes of a "grand slam home run" and, when they even get double, they go for very high prices -- way beyond their initial investment.

      This is really just outsourcing of R&D and offloading of risk. Its cost should be included in the "R&D spending" of the acquiring company just as if the company had hired 20 outside firms to do R&D of 20 new drugs under contract and only one of those actually produced a useful drug. In that case, the cost of all 20 contracts would be in the "R&D column" even though 19 of them failed to produce a useful drug.

    8. Re:Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Similar in Singapore, and most of the modern world.

    9. Re: Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However the makers of coversyl had no problem with PBS when they switched from sodium salt to potassium salt just stay under patent protection. Even though there was no extra benefit to the patient

  2. Filter error: You can type more than that for your by JustOK · · Score: 1

    Why are they concerned with drugs for cheaper cancer?

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  3. Look, I get it by pablo_max · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I understand that finding, testing and indeed certifying new drugs is costly. I have worked in the certification world for 15 years.
    I also understand that a company needs to make a profit.
    Having said that, a drug company is not the same as a company like Apple or Samsung or Volkswagen.
    You can live without your iphone, so if you cannot afford the 1k price of an iphone..well...don't buy it.

    Can you do the same with that Hep-C cure? With AIDS drugs? No, you need them to survive. You will literally die if you do not get them. So, as we have seen many, many times over the years, old drug patents are purchased by third parties and the price is increased by, often times, more than 1000%.
    Or a super computer has slightly varied and already existing drug and a slight improvement is seen for MS patients. So, these are sold for $3000 per treatment.
    This is literally holding the public hostage.
    Sure, the assholes may argue... you can choose not to take it. Let us see your opinion when your little girls gets cancer (god forbid it) and you choose not to pay the 25000$ treatment because it's not fully covered by the insurance.

    In my opinion, it is fucking disgusting that this is allowed to happen. Utterly fucking disgusting. I would argue that anyone who thinks it is reasonable that drug companies should be able to charge whatever they like for literally life saving drugs, then you sir, are a complete and total sack of shit and the reason why we cannot have nice things. So, go fuck yourself.

    1. Re:Look, I get it by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      I agree. Except for the part about the iPhone.

    2. Re:Look, I get it by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And the counterpoint...

      So, how do you convince a drug company to spend the (sometimes) billions to develop a new drug if they're never going to sell enough of it to recover the billions?

      I suppose you can have the government do all drug development/testing. But that just means raising taxes to pay for the development of new drugs.

      Which means the drugs will STILL cost as much as the old way, but you won't see the costs on your doctor bill, you'll see them hidden on your tax bill....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    3. Re:Look, I get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open your damn wallet and start donating you liberal leftist scum. Always ready to spend someone else's money rather than your own.
       

    4. Re: Look, I get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you have military? Force them at gun point

    5. Re:Look, I get it by geekmux · · Score: 0

      I would argue that anyone who thinks it is reasonable that drug companies should be able to charge whatever they like for literally life saving drugs, then you sir, are a complete and total sack of shit and the reason why we cannot have nice things. So, go fuck yourself.

      You claim to "get it", but I wonder if you really do because of who you are looking to blame. You may not like my answer here, but allow me to clarify.

      We've carved up this planet into countries. Countries with borders identifying what is ours, and what is theirs. Resource management is a critical function of any government due to a finite amount of resources being consumed by a pool of citizens that grows larger every year. Part of resource management is creating polices that essentially ensure death, because population control is a key component of resource management.

      Cigarettes are one of the worst things man has ever created. Countless lives and trillions of dollars have been spent fighting to save those from one of the most addictive products on the entire planet. It's one of those things I wish we could un-invent, and the profits and behavior from Big Tobacco is truly disgusting. That said, there is no denying the fact that cigarettes have helped with population control over the last hundred years, which is one of the main reasons that deadly product is legal and thus supported by the government. Same goes for alcohol (cue the haters). Imagine the government policies regarding resource management if the planet had a billion or two more people on it because government sensibly outlawed deadly products. We would probably find even more nonsensical reasons to engage in warmongering just to cull the population. No, dying prematurely on a battlefield isn't any better than dying prematurely in a hospital bed, but both are created by government policy.

      Call it "disgusting". Call it sick and twisted. Call it a death warrant for anyone who succumbs to an expensive disease. Whatever you do, understand that the only one who's ever going to effect real change is YOU, a citizen and voting taxpayer. You sure as hell aren't going to get change from those who are profiting the most from "disgusting" behavior, which includes Big Pharma AND government.

    6. Re:Look, I get it by geekmux · · Score: 2

      And the counterpoint...

      So, how do you convince a drug company to spend the (sometimes) billions to develop a new drug if they're never going to sell enough of it to recover the billions?

      Well, I would first require a detailed audit of that billion-dollar price tag. After getting rid of 70% of the wasted overhead, the cost would likely drop considerably. Or you would pressure companies into reducing the cost by 70%, as I would imagine they would do anything to avoid an audit that would reveal how much excess there is in that R&D price tag.

    7. Re:Look, I get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open your damn wallet and start donating you liberal leftist scum. Always ready to spend someone else's money rather than your own.

      Or open your mouth and become an asshole rightist SJW like you!

    8. Re:Look, I get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the counterpoint...

      So, how do you convince a drug company to spend the (sometimes) billions to develop a new drug if they're never going to sell enough of it to recover the billions?

      Well, I would first require a detailed audit of that billion-dollar price tag. After getting rid of 70% of the wasted overhead, the cost would likely drop considerably. Or you would pressure companies into reducing the cost by 70%, as I would imagine they would do anything to avoid an audit that would reveal how much excess there is in that R&D price tag.

      $50-100 Million to do the final animal and human testing of a drug. ~95 % of drugs fail due to side effects or ineffectiveness.

    9. Re: Look, I get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe even voting has become a diluted form of power due to money in politics. Folks need to reject the foundation of a first past the post, two party system. Corporate funded lobbying to lock in more profits is only going to increase going forward. We live in interesting times.

    10. Re:Look, I get it by paiute · · Score: 2

      After getting rid of 70% of the wasted overhead, the cost would likely drop considerably.

      Please explain where this magic 70% is being wasted in R&D.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    11. Re:Look, I get it by avandesande · · Score: 1

      That doesn't explain why drugs like insulin are seeing 1000% increases. It is illegal market manipulation and these companies should be under investigation for breaking antitrust laws. If there is a hurricane and I double the cost of my gasoline at a convenience store I will be thrown in jail.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    12. Re:Look, I get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed with the critique. But what's a better solution? Without profits, the private industry will exit. You may get a few good-to-do companies investing but won't get billions for drug development. If you ask govt to fund it, they don't have the budgets to do it.

      I'll grant that the USA is the single largest producer of new medical drugs, but there are European drug companies too. They all accept government-negotiated pricing. There's no shortage of research being done or profits being made. No company is pulling out of the market due to government restrictions.

      It's complete bullshit that no innovation would happen without pure free-market economics. That's just what the drug lobby wants you to think, so they can prevent competition and justify exploitation.

    13. Re:Look, I get it by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      I understand that finding, testing and indeed certifying new drugs is costly. I have worked in the certification world for 15 years.

      [people have to chose between paying the exorbitant prices gouged by drug companies to pay for developing new drugs, or dying.]

      In my opinion, it is fucking disgusting that this is allowed to happen.

      Most of that cost is getting the drug through regulatory red tape before it can be sold. Ask Google about time and you get a link to a (2014) article saying that the whole process takes 10 to 15 years (average 12) of which 2 1/2 is the bureaucrats final-processing the 100,000 pages of paper. Ask about cost and you get an NYT article deconstructing a Tfuts Center (industry funded) claim of 2.5 BILLION dollars - of which about half is opportunity costs from not being able to sell it sooner. Even after the deconstruction, you're still talking high hundreds of millions to a billion and change.

      When the FDA law was first passed, enabling a federal gateway to drug sales, the congresscritters declared that if it held up a new drug for six months it would be unacceptably counter-productive. Years later, the Wall Street Journal headlined that just ONE drug-holdup (approving the use of beta blockers to ward off secondary heart attacks - because research done in Europe couldn't be used and it had to be re-done in the US) had caused 100,000 deaths. Read the text and it looks like the headline was conservative and the number was more like 400,000.

      The problem is that the bureaucrats' incentive structure is to hold up approval and cause invisible suffering and death, and high prices, rather than grant it and risk a very visible scandal like the Thalidomide (plus cigarettes, it turns out) flipper-babies.

      Want to end this? Change the law.

      Start by demoting FDA approval to advisory, rather than necessary for prescribing or sale of a compound for medical use. (Ptients will be able to deal with insurance company formularies in the free market. Some will require it, like UL approval before it became part of electrical codes. Others will pay for iffy stuff - which saves them costs in two ways: Curing some patients more cheaply, or killing them off before the costs add up.)

      You'll also have to end the drug war and give people the right to chose what they put in their bodies. This should also help: The drug war has blocked medical uses, and research on them, of drugs with PLESANT side-effects for a half-century. It has also led to under-medication for pain, which, in addition to torturing the terminally ill, seems to be THE cause of PTSD.

      I would argue that anyone who thinks it is reasonable that drug companies should be able to charge whatever they like for literally life saving drugs, then you sir, are a complete and total sack of shit and the reason why we cannot have nice things. So, go fuck yourself.

      Yeah, shut off debate by a preemptive ad hominem, flaming anyone who disagrees with you as evil and subhuman. We've seen a lot of that lately. It leads to polarization and increased conflict, not solutions.

      If I wanted to retaliate in kind, I'd point out that YOUR JOB, no doubt highly paid (or you need to work on that), is part of the very system that causes the problem of which you complain, and wouldn't exist without it. Then I'd call you a vile profiteer on the suffering of those millions of victims, yadda, yadda...

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    14. Re:Look, I get it by laurencetux · · Score: 1

      well first off a lot of drug companies tinker with existing drugs just so they can do a patent refresh so thats a lot of wasted effort.

      What i would like to see is a lockout of patents on drugs unless they can be proven to be NEW

      1 same active ingredient but fewer side effects (minor edits allowed)
      2 more effective delivery method (or less invasive ie convert shot to pill)
      3 cures/ treats disease that had nothing
      4 combines different drugs used together when they could not be taken at the same time
      5 replaces a number of drugs normally taken together with a single drug
      6 replaces a "fragile" drug with a stable one (shelf stable insulin or Nitro)
      7 wider "effective" dose to lethal dose range

      I also think its criminal that Medicad can't get discount/bulk prices

    15. Re:Look, I get it by registrations_suck · · Score: 1

      And if a company looks at the situation and decides to NOT bother investing in a new drug that solves XYZ problem, and therefore NOBODY gets access to that drug. That's helpful? Fuck that.

    16. Re:Look, I get it by hjf · · Score: 1

      Pharmaceutical companies already do that: they invest much more in baldness treatments than in malaria drugs.

    17. Re:Look, I get it by registrations_suck · · Score: 1

      Sure. But it's not because the government is limiting the opportunity. Big difference.

  4. Single payer by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of the advantages of a single payer system is bulk discounts. Congratulations to China!

    1. Re:Single payer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, good luck to all the rugged individuals in America who don't want any help negotiating their drug price reductions.

    2. Re:Single payer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You need single payer and a will to use it as leverage. The US Medicare system is the single largest provider in the country. It could have negotiated better terms for Part D (medicine), but was legally prevented from doing so. The Republicans argued private market since Medicare is fulfilled by private insurers (https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/washington/18cnd-medicare.html).

  5. Re:Meanwhile in America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    these slashdot "celebrities" only enjoy that status because you enable him
    ignore him. stop talking about him

  6. Look, I get it-rent-seeking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will they? Seems other countries manage to deal with that quandary, what's the US's excuse?

    1. Re:Look, I get it-rent-seeking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Will they? Seems other countries manage to deal with that quandary, what's the US's excuse?

      A brand new MD has about 250,000 reasons to want to be paid a six-figure salary for the quarter-million dollars worth of educational debt they racked up over the last decade just preparing for their job and career. Not trying to justify our medical costs, but where exactly do you start putting the blame? Educational costs sure as shit aren't helping your argument.

      Oh, and if you're really wondering how other countries deal with that problem, the parent had it exactly right. Taxes fund socialized health care.

    2. Re:Look, I get it-rent-seeking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes. The US performs 42% of the world's drug research. If we put price controls in, all of the governments around the world would have to raise prices or remove drugs from their benefits plan. While the article below ignores the claim of "free riding" by other government, it later proves that without using that particular phrase.

      http://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/369727-us-drug-prices-higher-than-in-the-rest-of-the-world-heres-why

  7. Honorary German citizenship: Granted. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a German, I hereby grant you the honorary German citizenship, for openly speaking your mind, and allowing negativity where negativity is due its rightful place besides positivity.
    You make us proud, and can move here, whenever you like.

    Yes, I am actually German. And no, apart from me not actually being able to grant citizenship status, I'm not being sarcastic.
    We have people like you on stages, giving them money to talk like that. (Look up "Kabarett (Germany)".) We consider it the most refreshing form of comedy.

  8. curious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so as china transitions from coal to nuclear it also transitioning from asthma drugs to cancer drugs ...

    they should totally make this a package deal:
    per 1 GW boiling-water nuclear you get free 30 years of anti-cancer drugs!

  9. They ARENT spending much on research! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is a blatant lie.
    Look at their numbers. Nearly all is marketing, lobbyism and sales.

    Pretty much all drugs come from them taking some thing they found in nature (e.g. my blood medication, wich is one of the most popular in the world, literally came from a snake poison suggested by a shaman),
    and then cluelessly tinkering with it, to see what the modified variants will do.
    A researcher for a big pharma company admitted that they really have no idea what they are doing, in an AMA in Reddit, a few years ago. (And when they fail, you get stuff like meth and krokodil popping up on the black market. Or it gets sold under its biggest side-effect.)

    Mind you, I'm fine with them doing that. It's useful.

    What I am not fine with, is them claiming it is soo hard, and soo valuable.
    Let alone it having to be for-profit (aka taking more money than they actuall worked for in return) or private.

    Let us, together (aka an actual government, not the US corporate oligarchy sock puppet scapegoat), give out great research grants, based on acrual potential usefulness for society! And when it results in something, allow everyone to manufacture it.
    Because the researchera were already paid for their work, and are not entitled to some magic exclusivity for manufaturing it, on top of that money, since they did not work on top of that alread paid researh work either.

    1. Re:They ARENT spending much on research! by paiute · · Score: 2

      Look at their numbers. Nearly all is marketing, lobbyism and sales.

      Nope. A lot of a pharma's budget is that, but unless you market, you don't sell. If you don't sell, you don't fund R&D. It's a balance.

      Pretty much all drugs come from them taking some thing they found in nature (e.g. my blood medication, wich is one of the most popular in the world, literally came from a snake poison suggested by a shaman), and then cluelessly tinkering with it, to see what the modified variants will do.

      Nope. Some drugs come from modification of natural products. Some are new structures. They tinker, but the chemists are not clueless. .

      A researcher for a big pharma company admitted that they really have no idea what they are doing

      Nope. Researchers have an idea of what they are doing. It just turns out that human biochemistry is really really complex. .

      What I am not fine with, is them claiming it is soo hard, and soo valuable..

      But it is hard. And modern pharmaceuticals are valuable. Stop taking them if you want.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    2. Re:They ARENT spending much on research! by dave420 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't need to market drugs if you're planning on selling to national health services. You bring your drugs to them, show them how good they are, and if they're better than the current drugs, they'll be bought in bulk, covering your costs. You only need to market drugs which don't sell themselves, or if you're marketing to people who don't care about efficacy (like to end-patients on TV in the US and NZ), or buying off doctors (US).

    3. Re: They ARENT spending much on research! by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Can anybody spot the scumbag pharma-shill?? Here's a hint: each and every one of his/her "arguments" can be easily debunked...

    4. Re:They ARENT spending much on research! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >nuh-uh
      >nuh-uh
      >nuh-uh

      3/5, does enough to collect his 50 cents but just the bare minimum, would appreciate cycling in a new shill with more pizazz.

    5. Re:They ARENT spending much on research! by registrations_suck · · Score: 2

      Pretty much all drugs come from them taking some thing they found in nature (e.g. my blood medication, wich is one of the most popular in the world, literally came from a snake poison suggested by a shaman), and then cluelessly tinkering with it, to see what the modified variants will do.

      If that's all it takes, then how come YOU are not doing the same thing and making billions?

    6. Re:They ARENT spending much on research! by rastos1 · · Score: 1

      Look at their numbers. Nearly all is marketing, lobbyism and sales.

      Nope. A lot of a pharma's budget is that, but unless you market, you don't sell. If you don't sell, you don't fund R&D. It's a balance.

      Wait a second. You are saying that the result of research is being sold as result of ... marketing? Like ... not because - this may seem outragous to you, but - because the patients need it?

      Or the patients would not know about the drug that can help them if it was not for the marketing? Isn't it doctor's job to know about the new drugs and tell the patient? Or is the marking you talk about marketing to doctors? In a TV, magazine ads and web banners?

      As an European, I find this mind boggling.

    7. Re:They ARENT spending much on research! by hjf · · Score: 1

      because the drug makers have the patents to protect them.

    8. Re:They ARENT spending much on research! by registrations_suck · · Score: 1

      That doesn't stop you from developing something that isn't already patented.

  10. Re:Profit is theft. A crime. Profit off of lives, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Plain and simple. Knowing, willful, deliberate psychopathic mass murder.

    So, we ban all polices and products that would negatively impact the health and well-being of every human on the planet, and create the utopia you want.

    Care to tell me how this human society would behave if there were another 3 billion people on this planet? Unemployment at 20% or higher? Welfare programs straining to stay alive and justified as the masses revolt against the taxes to pay for it all? The garbage issue poisoning our planet?

    That is the kind of shit that would likely incite the same "psychopathic" behavior, because we would probably be forced to go back to the Roman days of killing people for pure entertainment just to help cull the population.

  11. A Cure for their own Poison? by your_mother_sews_soc · · Score: 1

    I know we're in the age of "World Love" and everyone is equal, but what the hell are we doing selling Chinese drugs in the US or GB or anywhere but China? This is from yeterday's news: "Blood Pressure Medication That May Contain Cancer-Causing Impurity Is Recalled" http://fortune.com/2018/07/16/... We have no oversight and have to operate on trust. Right. You jump and I'll catch you.

    --
    My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
    1. Re:A Cure for their own Poison? by quanminoan · · Score: 1

      See the book "China RX" - nearly everything is made overseas. AFAIK there is not even a penicillin production facility in the US.

    2. Re:A Cure for their own Poison? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know we're in the age of "World Love" and everyone is equal

      We will be once we bring death to America!

    3. Re:A Cure for their own Poison? by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Of course not, because we Yanks are well and truly idiots.

    4. Re: A Cure for their own Poison? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Expect Trump to put a tariff on that now and say it's for national security.

  12. cost in America will go up to cover this by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    cost in America will go up to cover this.

    But you can order from Canadian places for a lot less.

  13. Re:Profit is theft. A crime. Profit off of lives, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that is why hitler put the jews into the camps!

  14. Smart move for China, so bad for US citizens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No chance of Americans getting significant help in prescription medicine now, if the communists are doing it first, no effing way is an American politician going to support it, no matter how good it is for their constituents... Tired of winning yet?

  15. They're not stealing pharmaceutical IP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would've thought they just steal the formula and make their own.

  16. Re:cost in America will go up to cover this by dave420 · · Score: 1

    No, they'll go up because they can simply raise the prices because the US hasn't figured this out yet.

  17. Drugs in China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Black rhino horn or tiger testicles.

  18. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  19. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  20. Re: Shoot a Russian on site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Girls, you're both pretty.

  21. Re:cost in America will go up to cover this by wbr1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In the US - the gvmnt cannot negotiate the price of drugs - even for medicare/medicaid. Given that these programs are one of the biggest purchasers of drugs in the USA - this is a golden teat that pharmaceutical companies will continue to exploit - by raising prices all around. Why not, their biggest customer is guaranteed to pay any price.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
  22. You can't order from Canada by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    they go out of their way to block Canada to US sales for just that reason. A lot of folks I know go down to Mexico. If they've got family that knows how to navigate their healthcare system is works well. That works for Canada to a certain extent. Canada has "Healthcare refugees" who move to Canada with their spouses because otherwise they can't get care. There several videos on youtube about it.

    I've got friends and family who have long term illnesses in America and have spent their entire lives struggling to get the care they need to live. But at least 20% of Americans are convinced that taxes will go up if we switch to single payer (even adjusting for the cost of healthcare from their employer). A lot of these are ex-military and people on Medicare who "got theirs, fark me" too, which doesn't help.

    I think the hodgepodge is about to collapse though. The Republican party is currently gutting the VA (Trump's Admin just closed a whole bunch of sites and did general funding cuts). They've been chipping away at Medicare too (they did the Plan-B stuff under Bush and Paul Ryan & Co have been conditioning the electorate to believe we can't afford it). Meanwhile Trump's Admin has allowed a challenge to the ACA's pre-existing coverage requirement to go forward unchallenged. It will probably make it up to the SCOTUS where the newly minted judges appointed by Trump will kill it. That means we'll be back to the days when you can't change jobs without permanently losing access to health care.

    If the Dems take the house this might be slowed for a few years, but eventually the legal challenges will make it to the Superme Court where they right wing judges will shut it down. Eventually they'll challenge Medicare and that'll be that. At that point our only option will be no healthcare for anyone but the very wealthy.

    The question is, what then? Will we slide into a third world winner take all economy? That seems to be where we're heading. I'm expecting to be dead (I'm 40 and men in my family are not long lived no matter what) and my kid will hopefully have a STEM degree and will move to Canada but otherwise we're going to need a constitutional amendment to fix this mess.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:You can't order from Canada by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      I agree things will continue to collapse, but the difference I see is that BOTH parties are gutting the health system. Obamacare was just another move to do it - the number of retirements of physicians has been enormous, because they can no longer make their expenses with declining medicare/medicaid reimbursement, and that was when Obama was still President. The frightening thing is that nobody really, really wants to believe that both major political parties in the US really are about 99.5% the same. And they are not on the side of the populace.

  23. Re:cost in America will go up to cover this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Martin Shkreli would like for you to continue to believe that is how it works.
    He bought a company, secured the rights to make Daraprim, and raised the price per pill from $13.50 to $750. All because he could do it, all fully legal.
    Then he got caught trying to rip off rich people, so they sent him to jail.

    Mylan gained the rights to make Epipens in 2007, when they cost $94. Mylan then raised the price each year to over $600 by 2014.

  24. Wish this could be done in USA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a sound and rational decision made by a country that cares for the physical well being of the population. Unlike the USA where legislation bars Medicaid from negotiating for lower prescription drug prices and allows pharmaceutical companies to provide incentives to doctors for prescribing higher cost name brand medications over their less costly generic counterparts or analogues. Neither the pharmaceutical companies nor their lobbyists will allow the situation at home to change because it would have a negative financial impact on the pharmaceutical companies and the wallets of our congressional representatives. It seems like the USA would rather bankrupt or allow seniors taking multiple prescriptions to go untreated.

  25. Re:cost in America will go up to cover this by sjames · · Score: 3

    Let's be more clear. The government CHOOSES not to. There is nothing that fundamentally stops it, just a bit of legislation that could be reversed quickly if the legislature ever decided to put the general welfare ahead of infinite profits for the few.

  26. All because of a movie? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is the movie Dying to Survive available anywhere (English subtitles OK)?

  27. Anyone else here not like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



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  28. Re:cost in America will go up to cover this by wbr1 · · Score: 1

    Well that goes without saying - but our reps have long since sold out. I don't think anything will change that short of collapse or revolution.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
  29. Re:cost in America will go up to cover this by sjames · · Score: 1

    It shouldn't go without saying. Don't let them sweep this under the carpet with their cries of "we CAN'T". They can and they know it. The sooner the general public internalizes that, the sooner the bums can be kicked out via soap, ballot, or ammo box.

  30. Re:cost in America will go up to cover this by CaffeinatedBacon · · Score: 1

    Why will the cost go up? They already invented them there is no other cost now but the manufacturing cost. If they can make more and sell more for lower margins they can still make even more profit. (Even if they gave it away at cost it wouldn't make a difference to your prices.)
    If they don't agree to the discount and a competitor does, then they won't be selling any or making any money anyway. Aren't capitalism and free markets great.
    Just because you shoot yourselves in the foot and don't try to negotiate better prices, don't assume every country is equally in bed with the pharmaceutical countries as yours.