Why is it that evil, money-grubbing, profit worshipping drug companies only charge high prices to American customers? It’s because the governments of other countries do not allow them price freedom. If our government got enough backbone to create price controls like other countries, we would have much more affordable drugs like everyone else. In the US, we pay market price for drugs, and it’s damn high. You don’t want to pay market price for drugs, then the gov’t MUST step in to control the market.
That might cause issues with R&D and future drug discovery, but I don’t know enough about that to comment.
Heh. I work for a smaller pharmaceutical company, and one of our drugs treats Kaposi’s Sarcoma. Judging by the meager product sales that generates, either lots of people are using the butter pat method, or they’re just not getting KS much anymore.
Okay, look. I guaran-ass-tee you that my company blows money on stupid shit. Our marketing and sales folks get a lot of money to spend. But you know what? So does our R&D group. What’s included in that R&D bucket? Annual product and establishment fees paid to the FDA to keep our products approved and able to be manufactured - about $500,000 this year alone. We want to file with the FDA to have an existing product approved for a different indication? $336,000 payable to the FDA upon filing. Making sure our 5 products are stable and in compliance with product specifications? Almost $2M next year. And we’re one of the little guys.
I’ve worked at this company for 5 years - I started out in the finance group, and now work in regulatory affairs. It boggles my fucking mind how many regulations there are that we need to comply with, and how much it costs to stay in compliance. No wonder our drugs are so goddamn expensive. And no wonder we pay our marketing dudes so much to promote the shit. We want to make back some of that money before it goes off patent and any asshole can manufacture it.
I’m not saying the industry isn’t fucked up. It probably is. But give me a break.
That’s my worry. Exactly how many new drugs are pharma companies developing in France, England, Germany, et al? Is it profitable enough over there for them to bother? Or do they just let the US do all the hard work and take the cheap pills afforded by the price controls?
Seriously, how does that work? Are there any drugs available in the US that were developed over in Europe?
The drug companies have made the decision to offer cheaper drugs to countries that couldn’t afford American prices to at least get some money off the sale of their drugs to these people, and even in other areas purely for humanitarian reasons.
Surely you recall the immense pressure that drug-companies faced to provide cheap prescription AIDS drugs to Africa? Basically, we might as well give the drugs to the Africans for free because we couldn’t make any money off of them anyways, but we can all agree that you couldn’t possibly do the R+D on a modern AIDS drug for the pricing that Africa gets. So you’re right, the American market is subsidising the African drugs, and even lining the pockets of the people that take risks in developing these drugs. If you feel that pharmaceuticals is such easy money, perhaps you should invest some of your own into upstart drug companies. Now, more and more drug companies are literally single-drug companies based upon the success of just a single drug. If the drug makes it through clinical trials and proves safe and effective, you’ve got a 14-odd year monopoly to make as much as you can. If it doesn’t you’re screwed. It’s your decision to make, so good luck.
In the end, capitalism has helped to develop far more drugs than otherwise would exist, and after 14 years, they’re virtually free to you. Shouldn’t you go somewhere and thank all of those nice drug companies for giving you all of that free R+D for all of the generic drugs you use considering that you aren’t paying them a cent?
Oh, come on, luci! Don’t you know that the NYT is nothing but the mouthpiece of the Vast Universal Liberal Media Conspiracy™?
The only source for unbiased news are the Jesus-blessed outlets of Rupert Murdoch – reading or watching anything else means you’re just cavorting with Satan!
What about the sliding scale at places such as Planned Parenthood? Certainly you don’t see the fact that a poor-person can get a prescription for $3.00 while the rich-person has to pay $30.00 as inherintly evil, do you? Think of the differences in drug pricing between the United States and the Ivory Coast as a sliding-scale on an international scale.
I work for biotech, which, as I learn more and more every day, is sometimes quite a different business model than your average big pharma; and then again, sometimes there are striking similarities. It really depends on what aspect of the business you’re looking at.
Where I work we’re told time and again to refrain from speaking to anyone in the medai off-the-cuff about business matters. It’s a blanket rule, and I don’t think it can be construed as being indicative of guilt or innocence, but rather business as usual. When you’re a company with shareholders and proprietary info., you don’t let just anybody spout off about your business, period, be it to Michael Moore or anybody else. It’s tempting to make hay of these corporate memos, but it’s really nothing more than a stern reminder of a policy that applies to all communication. I’ve gotten similar reminders during especially sensitive periods, reiterating our obligation to the employer to keep your traps shut and refer all questions to our corporate PR. So far as I know, almost every company in every sector also behaves this way. I follow Apple Computer’s business quite often, checking out the rumor sites, and saw recently that Apple slapped some lawsuits on some contractors who leaked proprietary info. without permission. I doubt the leaked info. cause much damage, and certainly revealed nothing nefarious about Apple, it’s just that gabbing without permission is simply not done.
This is not to say anything good or bad about Pfizer or Merck or whoever MM decides to target. It’s just that corporate secrecey is de rigeur, and really indicates nothing out-of-the ordinary. The only special about this case is the person doing the questioning. I await the results of MM’s expo with interest. I think we all know that he’s a slanted propagandist, but as such he’s a master of the craft. You don’t see an MM production to get a fair and balanced representation. You see it to watch the powerful and elite take a few (often well-deserved) bruises, which is a guilty pleasure for many. Let me say, as one who admittedly gets my living from the Health Care industry, I’ll sleep better knowing its serving all concerned honestly and ethically. I am, hand-on-heart with ernestness, very happy with my employer, but some of the other players out there? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Chances are few run unethical businesses, but if some do, they should be exposed.
Pink, I think it’s important to note that what you linked was a section described as:
Meaning, that the list you provided was underneath my quoted heading. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. Yes, my individual situation means a drug may react differently to me than, say you.
