Slashdot Mirror
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."
But maybe it's what they teach at MBA courses.
Anyhow, time to decommercialise medicine. Yes, I know it sounds pinko commie socialist. Even so.
Seems suspicious
With extreme prejudice.
https://www.campaignmoney.com/...
Either that or he just thinks his campaign contributions are best placed with them.
The sad part is, if making money can be called a "moral requirement", apparently it is more important than the truly moral cause of healing as many people as possible.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
if you accept the premise of private, for profit insurance as a means to access medicine and healthcare and that these companies will be privately traded companies with shareholders then yes, that's where the moral imperative lies. This is one of the consequences of such a system.
We already know the solution is single payer healthcare. We can see it working in a dozen countries. The question is will we swallow our pride long enough to vote the sorts of people in that'll give it to us?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
the stench of evil.
So, no patents? Simple solution: contract with some other drug makers to duplicate it.
As much of the money to buy these drugs comes out of the public's pocket, perhaps it would be a better idea to invest public funds in the supply chain up front. Set up a gov't funded manufacturing unit to produce orphaned drugs and steer around patents on things like EpiPens.
Have gnu, will travel.
There are no patents on this. It's an old medication. What keeps other companies from selling exactly the same substance? Answer: Government regulation.
Government needs to do more to help more companies make these medicines at reasonable prices.
Actually it was I, not Ms Mash, who posted this story.
I’m always amoused when these low-budget shkrelis claim to be defenders of the free market when they make insane price moves. If we actually did have a free market in pharma, we would be able to fill our prescriptions for this compound at the world market price of $18, as per the closing line that was oddly edited out of my post.
The only way price increases like this can be made to stick is to have the FDA on your side, preventing us from being able to compete. Time to rip out the FDA’s ability to keep competition out of the market. Let it manage testing, not price manipulation.
This is exactly how for-profit industries work.
Maybe instead of trying to find ways to make for-profit healthcare marginally less of a roiling tire fire for Americans, we should instead nationalize healthcare, like the rest of the civilized world.
:|
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
the god of money rules all, puny humans are irrelevant
And not because he's a greedy little cunt, but because shit like this is an assault on the English language. The words you're looking for are not "moral imperative" you fucking dim-witted imbecile.
moral (môrl, mr-) adj. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary. adj. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson. adj. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
Ok... decades old drug, these guys are taking advantage of a government-mandated monopoly (patent) that turned into a natural monopoly - US patent exclusivity is seven years. FDA needs to create a process to automatically institute a fast-track for generic competition in cases like this where a drug's price is increased by over a defined threshold (100%?). The resources required to staff such fast tracking should be recoverable in reduced cost to Medicare/Medicaid/etc. Let the Pharmacy Benefit Managers pitch in, for that matter... they are supposed to be all about managing the price of drugs. This is a simple way to do it.
That's what we should be doing with assholes like these that pull shit like this.
I seem to recall some orange-faced liberal from New York City telling us he'd force drug companies to lower the price of their drugs. You know, use the power of big government to dictate to private companies how they should run things.
He wasn't lying when he said that, was he?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Big Pharma is extremely corrupt. This is just the tip of the iceberg that will be exposed later this year / next year.
Placing profit above people's life & health is immoral. How much profit is "enough" ?
--
Main St. built America
Wall St. robbed it.
The problem isn't capitalism, it's a distinct lack of capitalism. If every pharmaceutical manufacturer on the planet was allowed to make and market this drug, the price would drop dramatically. The problem is patents on essential medicine.
The industry is sociopathic.
Some argue that it is already the case for people who feed off of the misery of others and through the profiteering acts of assholes like this guy their numbers are ever increasing. It won't even need to ba a majority before the backlash comes because at some point a significant is going want to hold these assholes accountable whatever the majority thinks.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Somebody else created this possibility, can't blame the CEO for taking advantage of the situation.
It is a recurring myth that corporations are somehow absolutely required by law to seek profit. It seems now is a good time to mention that this is absolutely not true. Corporations are only required to do what their charter says, which usually includes some notes about profit, but also more importantly defines the role the company will take (like improving healthcare).
This CEO is avoiding the legal implication by claiming it's a "moral" requirement. Of course, that means there's no written guideline to which we can refer that will identify this as blatant greed, so it becomes a matter of personal judgement. I hope that's remembered in the future whenever the CEO tries to claim he's always acting in the public interest.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Usually the point of operating a business in a capitalist nation is to make money.
And in a communist nation, as per Karl Marx, the point is for the common people to steal money from the rich and successful people, sometimes through the use of violent and bloody means. When all the people with an IQ above 95 are dead, all of the books have been burned, and society has returned to a scientific and philosophical dark age, you will have a communist utopia. This is all, shockingly, in the Communist Manifesto.
I hope they tax the shit out of this guy and then spend his tax dollars on the poors. That'll show him.
To a certain extent. The idea, much like "the customer is always right" is enshrined, but not correct. Also if he wants to play the moral game, then it's the moral right of his competitors to undercut him, kind of like Epipen.
Just read the reviews of their employees, mentions out-of-date systems, low pay, or no pay, unrealistic deadlines, high turnover, etc. Not a good way to run a company in the long run. If their competition cannot price their pharmaceuticals any lower, why should this company do the same?
https://www.glassdoor.com/Revi...
The CEO has a fiduciary obligation by law to provide the most value to his shareholders. If the market will pay a 400% increase, he's doing his job.
Except when it comes to the demand curve in health, the fcuker goes vertical.
Is this right? No, and it's why I believe we're going to see big pharma get a bloody nose one of these days especially in regards to antibiotics which are quickly becoming useless in the face of common diseases.
and get free doctors + meds in prison
You know, the government knew all about Shkrelli's crimes before he raised the price of that drug. And then he got known for being an asshole that raised a generic drug's price in this same way, forcing the government to do something about him. Congratulations, Nirmal Mulye, you've just made yourself very interesting to the FBI.
that's the problem inherent to for-profit healthcare, the primary drive of all for-profit companies is to make money and all other considerations are secondary
now yeah individual doctors and small businesses may make decisions and factor in what most people call morality, like my grandmother when dying of cancer, her oncologist waived all his fees once her insurance ran out
but big companies, they don't work that way, all they care about, all they are capable of caring about is the bottom line
this is why the USA pays more per capita for healthcare than anywhere else but in actual health metrics lags behind many other countries that pay less
When are we going to start? It's been too long already.
and that there is no drug or treatment to keep him alive and that he dies a slow and painful death.
"He tells it like it is"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Both systems dehumanize individuals in favor of the group. They just go about in different ways.
People in Venezuela and North Korean are both starving but under different systems.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Patents have never been to spur innovation. Their purpose is to preserve knowledge. We as society decided we would trade a limited monopoly on an invention for the complete description of that invention. The invention was supposed to be innovative such that any other person knowledgeable in the craft would say "hey, that's a really good idea, I can use that". I should want to read patents because they would teach me, they should be a resource when I want to solve a problem. Journalists should publish them in trade journals because of the innovation in them.
Inventors will invent because we want to solve problems, because there is profit in providing solutions to our customers. We don't need patents to do that. (and we don't need drug patents either - our way of developing drugs is wasteful and broken)
Today when someone actually comes up with something innovative they often don't patent it. Manufacturing methods, if they are truly useful are rarely patented. Small companies can't defend a patent and any inventor who is altruistic will publish their idea almost anywhere other than the patent office. Not only are patents now unreadable (I can't make any sense of any of the patents my name is on) but we are told not to read them because it might increase our companies liability.
When companies spend more money on patent lawyers than on new product development (Apple, google, Oracle) or get screwed when they don't (RIM/Black Berry) we have a problem.
It is now your moral duty to shun East Texas and actively fight patent laws.
Republican?
Whatever perversion of the patent system that still has this drug covered decades later, it needs to be changed.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The world scale also includes the Communist Parties of Cambodia, North Korea and Cuba. As well as whatever name Maduro's vampire party in Venezuela calls itself. So you might as well be saying "on a global scale, which includes all of the dysfunctional shitholes with no rule of law, confiscatory policies and a penchant for firing AA batteries at political prisoners, the DNC is actually pretty damn good."
So in other words, by expanding the Overton Window until it looks likes an event horizon bringing in the entire plane of possible human political choices, you've basically made a tautilogical defense of the DNC.
I wouldn't say it's a moral requirement, and I'm a libertarian. However, it isn't immoral either.
By raising the price the temporary side effect is that users will need to rebudget, seek out extra money, or discontinue use.
The long term side effect is now the market sees a massive profit incentive to create more of the drug. This should result in lower prices once competitors enter the market. Quite possibly much lower than they were before the price hike.
It's heartwarming to consider how far we've come since Ivan Boesky had to assert that "You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself." Thank god! At last, it is moral imperative. The question now is.. Can you NOT be greedy and still feel good about yourself.?
It's a tougher question than people might think.
This is their goal, to siphon all money they can out of the working class and into the hands of the already rich without consequence for any harm that happens along the way. That is how they stay rich. And like morons we allowed corporations to become these unstoppable money siphoning machines. Good luck fixing this in a peaceful way this since the corporations now own your governments and make their own laws.
Interesting that the VA some healthcare systems are banding together to combat this abuse by forming a nonprofit company to manufacture some generic drugs. They hope to guarantee a steady supply at reasonable prices.
https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news/2018/01/leading-us-health-systems-announce-plans-to-develop-a-not-for-profit-generic-drug-company/
https://www.biospace.com/article/unique-5-health-systems-to-launch-new-generic-drug-company/
Why not charge 1 million per pill. Why not simply label it, "All your money". Isn't that better? Why leave all that money on the table?
In reality, for-profit insurance companies have a vested interest in drug prices being kept in check, because it gets harder to sell people policies when they're stuck increasing their rates sufficiently to cover these inflated medication prices!
One of the negatives of single-payer healthcare is that it would be funded from taxpayer dollars, meaning as per usual -- central government lacks motivation to keep the costs down. Since they don't have to show a profit on THEIR books, they simply find other avenues to extract the required revenue to pay whatever they're asked to pay.
The real problem here is that this Nirmal Mulye character fails to understand that the pharmaceutical industry isn't truly a "free market" business. It already receives special favors by way of the FDA protecting exclusive rights to a new drug for years after it's brought to market, and rules preventing overseas competitors from selling their offerings here as cheaper alternatives. They're very much a protected monopoly on a given drug, holding customers (whether they be end users paying out of pocket, or insurers paying on their customer's behalf) hostage to either pay any price they dream up, or to simply do without the cure.
This fucker first up against the wall.
I'd love to have that guy locked in an airtight room. "I can sell you some air - it only costs $5000 per litre, cash up front." "But, but... I don't have that much cash on me!" "Well, I'm sorry sir, but it's a moral imperative for me to make as much money as I possibly can. Ten thousand people who suffered badly because of your drug-price gouging want to do a group buy of all these air tanks. Unless you can beat what they're offering, I'll have to sell it all to them - it's just the right thing to do!"
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
morels are damn expensive.
Problem is patent instituted monopoly on production of given drug. Remove patent protection and this company can hike prices as much as it wants (for any reason it wants), and it will not matter in slightest.
There are dozens of other manufacturers of this same medication (see https://www.pharmacompass.com/...), and four newer alternatives to this medication that are more widely prescribed (https://healthplans.providence.org/providers/news-and-events/provider-enews-archives/older-articles/uti-drug/).
Basically, this CEO wants to get out of this highly-competitive marketplace, but is too stupid to just shutdown it's manufacture and sell all remaining stock of the product.
I love it when incompetent people try to boost their personal wealth, but slit their own throats in the bargain.
This sort of complete market capture for unlimited periods needs to die.
Rework the system to give these companies 10 years of sole manufacturing rights.
Then 10 years of royalties on their drugs being mass-produced across the industry.
After that, let competition decide the winnner.
And if someone hits this sort of market capture, it then behooves competitors to produce their own brand, driving prices back down.
Because this shit is insane.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Headline from the future
It's just as moral to shoot the CEO in the head. After all, saving millions of people money is the moral thing to do, right?
Seriously it wasn't long at all before you outed yourself a complete moron.
There are no remaining patents on this, surely? So how does he keep a competitor from starting to sell this for a lower price?
If it's decades old, then it must not be patented. Why isn't a competitor beating the living shit out of them?
Or to put that another way, maybe this company happens to charge that much, but what does it actually cost a user buy?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"decades-old antibiotic" a protected market was granted. When does the public (common good) get compensated for granting that original protection. Seems to me the manufacturers just keep buying extended protects from the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats (worldwide) to gain excess profits. This applies to both patent and copyright excessive extentions.
;)
Just my 2 cents
internationally is that you're buying from countries that have single payer healthcare and therefore can negotiate much, much better drug prices than private insurance companies can/do.
The free market doesn't solve drug prices. There really is only one solution and it's single payer. Healthcare doesn't work like traditional goods because a) unless you have an 8 year degree you lack the necessary information to make informed purchase, b) it's a matter of life or death, meaning you can't really shop around and c) you need it infrequently enough that you can't rely on repeat purchases to weed out low quality (I buy a new video card every 2 years or so but I'll probably only have 1 set of heart stints).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I want to nationalize the _paying_ for healthcare. It's an important distinction.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
âoeWell, given my moral obligation to make money, how much are you willing to pay for me to treat your child? âoe
Just saying....
Nirmal Mulye's definition of "moral":
'Something I want to do', likely aided and abetted by others around him, totally in their self-interests and motivated by Greed. That is his idea of "moral".
Yes, businesses exist to make a profit, and I support all ordinary business practices. Bringing morality into it is a slippery slope into a bottomless pit of contradictions and cross-currents. Suggesting that Greed motivated actions are a moral good is so bizarre and warped that it needs to be summarily dismissed. This idiot should just shut his trap and let smarter (and morally clearer) individuals talk about such matters.
Nirmal Mulye is a symptom of a larger disease. The answer is not more government, rather the problem is way too much government already and the lack of importation options, private and commercial.
These simple, old generic drugs at most only need purity tests not the FDA's battery of legal bs. The FDA's "protection" is about promoting and protecting extortion rackets. I'm a little surprised the neighborhood bootlegger hasn't already re-emerged.
In formerly third world countries, nitrofuraton can be anything, from under 1 cent per pill, under $1 per 100, to maybe $50 per 100.
The shortest path to Pharmaceutical Industry price regulation is the path he's currently taking.
At some point, Congress will have no choice but to regulate what these folks can charge for medicine lest the voters remove them from office. ( This is where your older voters wield immense power )
The more these CEO's keep jacking the prices by absurd amounts, the sooner the regulation hammer will come down on them all. The other CEO's know this and wish folks would quit putting them all into the spotlight.
His smarter investors will be quick to point out that the " Moral requirement to make MORE money " will be seriously undermined by industry pricing regulation.
But, by all means, stay the course. The industry certainly won't get any sympathy from those they're screwing over in the never ending quest for greater wealth.
Shoot him for crimes against humanity. That is the moral thing to do.
msmash, how you love to kill this place,,
this guy is morally bankrupt..
ANY ONE WHOM SUPPORTS THIS IS ALSO IN THE same boat.
you my interesting little man, will burn in hell.
you clearly do not understand the concept of managing your environment.
Remember once you loose your seat @ the "table" your money will only go so far..
in response to
"Actually it was I, not Ms Mash, who posted this story.
I’m always amoused when these low-budget shkrelis claim to be defenders of the free market when they make insane price moves. If we actually did have a free market in pharma, we would be able to fill our prescriptions for this compound at the world market price of $18, as per the closing line that was oddly edited out of my post.
The only way price increases like this can be made to stick is to have the FDA on your side, preventing us from being able to compete. Time to rip out the FDA’s ability to keep competition out of the market. Let it manage testing, not price manipulation."--Spoken like a true immigrant trying to screw over every one ya can, perhaps this is why you fled YOUR OWN COUNTRY?
You dumb A** Fu**.
Why the He** would you decide to post this crap here???
Moving past that, msmash, who would you publish it..
dumb Bi***..
The last fool that jacked the price up a few hundred % ended up in jail... although not for jacking the price.
First used in 1953. it's got lots of generic versions available - just buy and import one of those. Sounds like a small pharma lab identified a drug without really any other US manufacturers and is trying to capitalize on it - before someone else just fires up and brings in the generics from one of the big pharma companies for pennies on the dollar.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
John Rogers
This Is Why Your Drug Prescriptions Cost So Damn Much
“It’s Exhibit A in how crony capitalism works.”
by Stuart Silverstein
Oct. 21, 2016
Mother Jones
When [Congress] approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription drugs, it slapped on an unusual restriction: The federal government was barred from negotiating cheaper prices for those medicines. Instead, the job of holding down costs was outsourced to the insurance companies delivering the subsidized new coverage, known as Medicare Part D.
The ban on government price bargaining, justified by supporters on free-market grounds, has been derided by critics as a giant gift to the drug industry. Democratic lawmakers began introducing bills to free the government to use its vast purchasing power to negotiate better deals even before former President George W. Bush signed the Part D law, known as the Medicare Modernization Act.
All those measures over the last 13 years have failed, almost always without ever even getting a hearing, much less being brought up for a vote. That’s happened even though surveys have shown broad public support for the idea. For example, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found last year that 93 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans favor letting the government negotiate Part D prescription drug prices.
It seems an anomaly in a democracy that an idea that is immensely popular—and calculated to save money for seniors, people with disabilities, and taxpayers—gets no traction.
-- Link to source
Not even indicated for use in humans. It's used to treat tracheobronchitis in dogs and urinary tract infections in dogs, cats, bovines, and equines.
Source: 21CFR520.1560(b)
Enjoy
I want my Lovecraftian horrors back. At least they don't cite a moral duty for sucking sick people dry.
These are now the most evil "morals" I've ever seen.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Grant oriented and government laboratories have not been very efficient at developing vaccines or drugs for treatments, generally.
The commercial incentives have spurred corruption (fake science journals, etc) and absurd pricing but it has proven to be more efficient, overall, at coming up with drugs that work.. even if they actively suppress vaccines and cures.
I wonder, would bounties work better? Would government buying out these drug patents work better? The prices would need to be very high but the results could be well worth it.
I think we should do two things:
(1) Offer bounties for cures and vaccines of the most critical ailments (affecting most people and/or cause the most suffering); then make the patents generically available to commoditize them to lowest production prices. Being as those bounties would need to be very high (multi-billion dollars), these would have to be for a limited number of ailments.
(2) Invest heavily in technologies that can speed up and reduce costs of research and development of new vaccines and treatments. This will include AI, automation, or anything that helps.. even if it's purely methodological.
Otherwise, allow the industry to work as it does.. filling in the gaps as best it can.
alldaychemist.com and others
When this fucker goes to hell with a FastPass, he'll be an ordinary working-class American with a UTI at this time. After he dies penniless from gangrene after his dick falls off, he's sent into a fever dream where he's forced to give the laughing, CEO version of himself a blowjob. This copy also has a UTI-riddled rotten zombie dick that jizzes out spiders. Next, GOTO 10.
(shame there's no hell for this guy...)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is what happens when words are misused - either accidentally (then exploited with harmful greed), or intentionally with harmful greed). We all remember that capitalism is a mechanism and a perspective, not a legitimization. By using the word, "morality" to argue his evil affects, he hopes to get saved through complexity. But we can all feel the disdain and disrespect that his voice has brought.
For factually arguing his (presumed) greed as moral, he begs just that. That he is immoral (stomach punch back to the guy).
Not earning money... but *making* it. Which means, either stealing it (euphemism: profit, job creation), or literally making it up (euphemism: banking, stock trading).
I'm strongly against dismissing capitalism as a concept, mind you.
It's more intended as sarcasm, to highlight the need, to separate such behavior and capitalism.
Since the ICD 10 defines sociopathy and psychopathy as two words for the same illness, and "sociopath" gets used as an euphemism ("he's just a sociopath"), I would call it "psycho-capitalism". How would you call it?
That's the market distortion introduced by the Govt and sponsored by big pharma
When in was in Europe last time, we needed a prescription filled for a drug that in the US cost $600 (Mind you that was the insurance negotiated price in the US). The european pharmacy provided the equivalent medicine for 6 euros. No insurance was ever involved. That is the scam. Most of us would not need to exorbitant insurance premiums if the medication were priced at their world price. That is the real fleecing of America. We should be outraged on in the streets about this but they have obfuscated all of this in such a way that most Americans don't know that they are getting fleeced anymore.
Revolved out of your grave again? Well, we couldn't just let the "real existing socialists" give you a bad rap. Let's give the proletariate some good reason to revolt again. Maybe it will work this time round. Unless you want to call Trump the "dictatorship of the proletariate". I mean, it's tempting.
I hate when Americans say "government" like they have an actual one ...
You have a council of corporate employees, using "regulation" specifically to harm competitors and make more profit, and call it "government" so they can act like they are the "innocent victims" when it happens to be them at the bloody end of the stick, and so they can make you hate and want to minimize the very and only thing you have ... an actual government for the people ... to prevent them tipping the market to your disadvantage. (Free market my ass. This is exactly what a too free market gets you. Corporations hate nothing more than an actually free market.)
So please don't hurt yourself, by using that "regulation" meme that way.
TL:DR: Why are you hitting yourself?
Legitimate business transactions make money because a legitimate business transaction is a benefit to both buyer and seller. The seller sells the item because he's being paid more than it cost him to make or acquire. The buyer buys the item because it's worth more to him than the price that's being charged. That is, legitimate economic transactions are positive-sum.
Taxes transfer money. And inefficiently at that (you have to pay someone to calculate the taxes, pay to make the payment, and pay someone to collect the taxes). That is, taxation is negative-sum. So taxes in and of themselves cannot make money.
Taxation can be a net gain if the tax revenue is spent on things which benefit the economy more than the amount of money spent. For example, building a road may cost $1 million. But if the amount of money saved by companies transporting goods due to the new road exceeds a cumulative $1 million, then the road is a net benefit and spending to build it was worth it. So government spending can make money, but taxation on its own cannot. However, unlike a business, there is no inherent pressure to force a government to make sure all spending of tax revenue is justified in this manner. That is, a government can't go bankrupt if it wastes money - it can just continue to raise taxes to pay for wasteful spending, up until the amount of its spending equals the sum total productivity of all its citizens (effectively approaching 100% taxation, which is what leads to the runaway inflation Venezuela is experiencing).
In this particular situation, the "proper" price for the drug is the one which maximizes revenue. If the company sets the price too high, then sales decrease enough to offset the higher price, and the company makes less money. The "proper" price is when (units sold)*(price per unit - cost to produce) = a maximum. At that price, the drug is being distributed most efficiently - an equal split in the benefit of the drug between the buyer and the seller. In this way, if the benefit is extremely large, the profit is large, which attracts other manufacturers to enter the market, thus increasing competition and lowering prices (sellers take a smaller cut of the benefit).
Usually when these situations crop up where a company can jack up the price beyond reason, it's due to it being the sole supplier (having a monopoly). That's what happened with Epi-pens. Except natural monopolies are extremely rare, and AFAIK every one which has formed has been dealt with with anti-trust regulations. The remaining monopolies are all due to poor government regulation. In the case of Epi-pens, it was the FDA approval process raising the cost of entry for any competitor so high that nobody else felt it was worth entering the market (competing with an established supplier could lower the price to just above manufacturing cost, meaning it could take decades to make back enough money to pay for the FDA approval process).
According to wiki, Nitrofuratoin has been around since 1953. There are generic versions available, so it would appear the patents on it have expired. The only people having to pay the exorbitant new price are those who insist on buying the name-brand version instead of the generic version. If the generic version is not available for sale in the U.S., then that's a problem with the FDA approval for manufacturing the generic, not with a company jacking up prices. Unfortunately, TFA never explores this aspect of the problem since it appears to be a single-minded hit piece against pharmaceutical companies.
There's nothing moral about greed. Especially when it leads to the death of someone who could have lived had the medication not been priced so high as to make it unattainable.
If even one person dies because of price-gouging, which this is, then the officers of the pharmaceutical companies, as well as their board members and majority stock holders should all stand trial for a minimum of Wrongful Death, if not down right murder, as had they not been greedy, the person might have lived.
We have a moral imperative to identify and remove sociopaths from our society - be they CEOs or entire corporations.
imagine a soft, buttery paw gently pressing down onto a sleeping soldier's face. forever.
The invisible hand of the market will solve everything. And to anyone thinking "He is putting his company in bad light" as a solution to this problem, it wont paint his company in bad light if this behaviour is copied by other players.
And yes, slashdot, cat got my tongue.
Since this guy should be all over that...
Or go out of business, leaving the world with none
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
You are welcome on my lawn.
The CEO appears to be quite confused as to what a moral is: "Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character. Synonyms: virtuous, good, righteous, upright, upstanding, high-minded, principled, honorable, honest, just, noble, incorruptible, scrupulous, respectable, decent, clean-living, law-abiding"
The CEO and the board that elected him lacks all of those qualities in spades. No morals to be found here - just pure greed to pad his own pockets at the expense of people who are suffering.
The correct fix for this nonsense is to change the law so that anyone participating in the practice of medicine cannot operate a company on the stock market. The stock market sucks the soul out of a company and you don't really want that to be happening in medicine because what this CEO is doing is what will naturally happen.
This drug is not even recommended for old people. This is really a non story.
Evangelical Christian businessmen have morals?
What would Jesus do? He'd flip over the tables of moneychangers, and kick everyone out of the temple. Making a huge profit is not a "moral requirement". Making an honest living and supporting your family and community is a moral requirement. The distinction is important, and the corrupted have difficulty seeing the distinction!
I'm not saying that Christianity is the only moral insight (or even a valid one, if you're not of the Faith). But it's a wildly popular religion in North America, and also wildly misunderstood. It's clear that what this person considers "moral" is not anything any of us have been taught or could even relate to. His is a wicked position. I'm sorry if that seems like I'm passing judgement, but his behavior is wrong. Maybe he can change on day, I hope so.
I'd ask that those who consider themselves Christians, right-wing or left-wing politically, seriously remember the most cherished stories of the Gospel. And compare the behavior of the powerful elite in our country against the example set forth by Jesus.
Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Profit is not a Christian value!
It's a legal requirement to make money, not a moral requirement.
Jesus said to help the poor and become fishers of men, not banksters.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And I have a moral obligation to kill him if one of my family members dies because they can't afford his exorbitant prices.
NOOOoooOOOO, that's not right. At least be honest here.
It's "Because I Can."
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
A book I highly recommend.
https://www.bkconnection.com/books/title/the-shareholder-value-myth#more-book
The Shareholder Value Myth
How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public
Lynn Stout
I find it more enlightening why this myth continues to persist, even among the educated. It's almost like that's what people secretly want, no matter how it's portrayed in public.
What else would you expect from a company named Nostrum Laboratories?
nostrum |nästrm|
noun
a medicine, especially one that is not considered effective, prepared by an unqualified person.
Almost all major world powers limit the amount drug companies are allowed to charge. This is exactly why! I don"t give a shit about freedom or capitalism when it comes to life-saving procedures and medicines. This should be illegal and no one should make a profit on suffering. People that think this is acceptable are garbage people, in my opinion.
WTF?
You are correct, it is morally right. #MAGA
They were already making a 400%+ profit off the drug at the old price.
They weren't going to go out of business, the greedy fuck just wanted a larger golden parachute.
I say we give him his "golden" parachute, (made from gold painted lead) and shove him out into the sky with it from a loaded troop transport.
See how long it takes for that parachute to kill him.
Citing 'Moral Requirement To Make Money', Pharma CEO Jacks Drug Price 400%
You know, some developed, capitalist countries do have this thing called "price controls" for things like, medicines and health-care related things.
We need that in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, but nooooo, that's szhozhulusm!!!
This guy is a social moron.
Moralism and Capitalism do not have a relationship.
Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.
Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
My 6 month-old has spina bifida. This antibiotic cocktail is a necessity to deal with the urinary conditions of her disability. I have a bottle of it in my kitchen right now. She'll be using it much of her life. It prevents sepsis and kidney failure, which used to be the highest cause of childhood mortality for those who have this condition.
This might be only one company and only one drug. Disability is already financially back-breaking for families. If you don't stop this and call it out, it won't just be for one-off infections and those with disabilities. Are we already so strapped that we can't afford basic life-saving and off-patent medicine for people with congenital diseases that would extend their life-long productivity by 60 years?
This is the result of ObamaCare removing all the price controls that were legally in place for decades.
But Obama fanatics have a hard time believing that the crown jewel of his administration is doing more harm than helping.
Let me guess .... you also didn't know that ObamaCare will penalize any business if they provide a good medical insurance benefit to their employees.
I don't recall the ACA having anything in it that would make insurance companies pay $2800 for a $15 treatment. There are several laws that prevent the gov't from negotiating drug prices and prevent consumers from importing drugs, but those weren't part of the ACA.
We have a _very_ efficient single payer healthcare system. Medicare. All we need to do now is expand it to everybody.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Personal experience..
Got a new job (with new insurance) .
In the USA, each time you switch jobs you get a whole different insurance company and likely a different physician network. That means you have to establish a new doctor who is not familiar with your medical history. (and you have to restart your deductible - the amount you have to pay fully out of pocket until you meet a minimum, then the benefits kick in)
I was having chest pains so I went through the insurance web site and selected a primary care physician. The physician was board certified with 20 years experience. (read popular - thanks yelp!) The next available appointment was a year out! I called the insurance and changed to another primary care provider who had available appointments (cause they were fresh out of med school). Got an appointment in the next month. Had lab tests ordered and came back two months later. Got a referral for a cardiologist 3 months later. Had more tests done and another appointment a month later. Came back and the tests were inconclusive.. more tests and another appointment a month later. Came back and had a diagnosis of myocardial infarction. Scheduled an operation.. for 3 months later. Got a stint put in one of my arteries to open it up.
People talk about health care in the US like you can just walk in and get a surgery. That is crazy. Any non-emergency major surgery will be at least a month wait, more likely 3 months.
Patients can go to the emergency room but they will be triaged by the urgency of their condition like in other countries.. so a broken arm could be a long wait if there are lots of deathly ill patients or a short staff on that day.. whatever.
-I keep hearing people talk about the wait times in socialized medicine as if we don't have wait times in the US.. and that its WRONG WRONG WRONG!
Hurr durr
"...The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." - Andrew Carnegie
If we take this to it's logical conclusion it means that we have a moral requirement to demand that the government forcefully socialize his business.
Not what I'd like to see happen but you know the popular middle aged conservative facebook meme "Play stupid games win stupid prizes"
this asshole doesn't know what morals are
I checked at a pharmacy I have used in the Philippines, a large chain. Under a US $ per pill.
https://tgp.com.ph/product/nitrofurantoin-100-milligrams/
I'm sure that was a typo. He meant to say "immoral requirement"
The government doesn't necessarily have a profit motive and is supposed to serve the people. If we were funding our universities and other R&D functions we could not only advance medicine but have more control over the pricing of the output.
All the ethics one associates with drug pushers...
As you say. One (US) Memorial Day weekend (not the holiday itself) I came down with acute Cellulitis. I was vomiting and passing out, and screaming in pain in the emergency room for about 12 hours before I was seen. They were short staffed that day, as all but one of the doctors had taken off.
This was normally a very good hospital, but not that time. Admittedly, it wasn't a life-threatening emergency...probably. I'm still not sure. I think that was the time I ended up needing a couple of weeks of home care with intravenous injections of antibiotics every few hours.
P.S.: This happened several times before I had a doctor who traced the source of the infection to some open athlete's foot infection sores between the toes. This was cured by always wearing strips of unspun wool between my toes every day, and by drying between my toes before I added the wool. Since then it's been decades without a repeat of the problem, where it had happened nearly once a year for three or four years before that.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This chart is a little bit dated, but makes the argument for socialized health care quite clearly.
I've had those experiences here in the states just the same. The only upside to America is that when I wanted a couple bumps on my head removed I had it done immediately. But for anything that was complicated or needed a specialist I had to wait. I had heart palps that made me feel like I was having mini heart attacks and I had to wait 3 weeks to get in to see a specialist. I never did see the specialist, just his Nurse practitioner. That cost me $800 bucks out of pocket, and I had some of the best insurance you can get.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Raising prices of drugs is totally lawful. The problem is with the law itself. While technology is changing fast, it is ridiculous to have 2 decade worth of patents!
PS: Unable to log on to SD using Google account due to some glitch in the web page itself.
You all pretty much decided this is a good plan.
You all seem to believe that your all going to be winners, so screw everybody else...
None of you think you might be the loser, until reality knocks your teeth out...
Not only that, but the reason they're effectively a monopoly is because of patents-- which is already a form of government regulation.
Patent law isn't the only regulation that boosts drug prices, nor is it necessarily even the strongest among them. Drugs like pyrimethamine and epinephine have seen drastic price increases in the United States market decades after the patent had expired.
Don't give off the stench of evil. The whole point of corporations is that they stink to heaven without any individual to blame. Reeking of evil for a CEO is as unprofessional as a gun salesman with bloody knuckles.
I mean I guess it's not honest to say it's a "moral requirement".... But at least he named the actual reason - profit. Perhaps he should have made a lie that sounded more "feel good" (even though we'd still know it was BS. Instead of : "More requirement to make money," he should reword it as "Moral requirement to pay those involved in the research, production, and distribution costs." We'd know it was BS.... But at least it'd be an attempt at PR that might fool a few people?
We'd lose this hilarious quote though, so he probably made the better choice.
I cast a spell for blood to run from every one of your orifices till you are completely drained!
The love of money is the root of all evil!
America 'Christianity' is really quite bizarre.
I wonder what Christ thinks of it.
For this
Criminal. What's the difference between ransomware and holding a cure for unreasonable prices and a loan shark?
Or, for that matter, holding a hostage captive for a large sum of cash?
Not much difference, if any.
You are still doomed to (damnation) unless you can find the cash to pay!
Also, a bit like terrorism!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
His greed is too naked and therefore will lead to the nationalization of his drug company. He might have the factory but we have the votes.
https://www.quora.com/Which-ca...
Casteism
If it's a moral requirement, why not hike the price to 10K, 20K or even 50K each. - See what the market will bear.
It's also probably a moral requirement to gouge this insufferable jerk for several millions for his health insurance.
Then it is time to take certain sectors out of the commercial realm. Clearly the market is dysfunctional here. Healthcare should not be commercial. States should find innovation just like much of high energy physics is not commercially funded. Mere production, free of intellectual property, can be left to the industry.