Citing 'Moral Requirement To Make Money', Pharma CEO Jacks Drug Price 400% (arstechnica.com)

The chief executive of a small pharmaceutical company defended hiking the price of an essential antibiotic by more than 400 percent and told the Financial Times that he thinks "it is a moral requirement to make money when you can." From a report: Nirmal Mulye, CEO of the small Missouri-based drug company Nostrum Laboratories, raised the price of bottle of nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 last month. The drug is a decades-old antibiotic used to treat urinary-tract infections caused by Escherichia coli and certain other Gram-negative bacteria. The World Health Organization lists nitrofurantoin as an essential medicine. In an interview with the FT, Mulye went on to say it was also a "moral requirement" to "sell the product for the highest price," and he explained that he was in "this business to make money."

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Re:Same Thing

[courteaudotbiz]

I'm Canadian, and I can assure you that our "socialised" system is:

• Damn expensive (50% of budget in Quebec)
• Inefficient (people waiting 26 hours in an emergency room for a fractured arm)
• Inefficient (people waiting 2 years for some basic surgeries)
• Inefficient (people waiting 1 year for an MRI)

So please, don't say our system is better than in the US. People are not dying in the streets up here, but when you have a condition, you better be patient. A patient patient.