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Hillary's Comments Sink Biotech

edited September 2015 in Off-Topic
Thanks Hillary, your hilarious comments where you act like you care about the average person resulted in a nice sale on biotech and healthcare in general.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/21/biotech-falls-on-clinton-price-gouging-comments.html

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  • scott said:

    Thanks Hillary, your hilarious comments where you act like you care about the average person resulted in a nice sale on biotech and healthcare in general.

    I find it hard to justify the cost of a tab of a 62 year old medication going overnight from $13.50 to $750.


  • It looks like single supplier and low demand, so not much motivation for competition to enter the market. Throw in laws that can be used by companies to block competition (rather than to protect health), add a "maximize profits" owner, and you have a good recipe for gouging.

    One way to address this sort of problem is to have laws that facilitate competition. Off the top of my head (i.e. half-baked) - more information sharing about off patent drugs, incentives to enter the market, etc. An opposite approach would be to deregulate, stop cutting into company profits:
    - Get rid of patent protection - if companies can't keep trade secrets, that's their problem.
    - Get rid of the FDA - if people die; companies can settle, that's a cost of doing business; caveat emptor; let the profit motive determine the optimal level of risk.
    - Get rid of prescription requirements; drugs are already advertised direct to consumers, this is just the next step.

    This is not a new problem:
    AARP July/Aug 2015 Prices Spie for Generic Drugs (a timely article about generic price gouging, before the recent news)
    NYTimes 10/14/2014 Business Officials Question the Rising Costs of Generic Drugs (1000% increases)
    Forbes article (2/27/15) mirroring the Times report.


  • edited September 2015
    The problem folks is that there are those drugs that are life sustaining, and then there are those like Viagara (I know, I know, some of you think THIS is life sustaining, but hush...)

    The price of ANY commodity - including tablets (no, not the iPad) - will be supported by demand vs supply. Only when it comes to drugs, we need to take hard look at the kind of society we want to live in.

    Someone finds a magic potion to cure Alzheimers. Should credit be given where it is due? Of course! Should profit me a motive? Sure. However, let's be careful now. Who paid for the education / research of the person who invented the drug? What debt does that person owe society/stage/goverment/etc?

    Intelligence, ingenuity, hard work, etc. are not traits everyone possesses. However that does not mean one human being control the life/destiny's of others. Sure, no one is doing anyone else any favors. However, if we are going to allow other good-for-nothing individuals to buy the rights for something, and then grab the world by their collective balls and keep squeezing when they feel like it, that should be illegal (and only because WTF cares of immoral?)

    Price the iPad at $5000. Those who want it will still buy it. A tenth of people who do now might buy it, but revenue generated is the same. That's economics. Charging $750 for a tablet? This is not economics, might be capitalism, something closer to objectivism, but really something very very vile I will go and try to lookup words in the dictionary to describe. Don't go away...
  • The best solution is to buy drugs from Canada. About 1/4 the price.
  • edited September 2015
    Hi @Mitchelg

    Is it not "technically" illegal for U.S. citizens to purchase prescription drugs from Canada???

    http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2015/02/02/is-it-illegal-to-get-your-prescriptions-from-canada/
  • what's the process for buying drugs in canada? do you have to go there in person?
  • @VintageFreak- Great commentary. Thanks.
  • VintageFreak, the high cost of drugs on patent have as much to do with supply & demand as to the price of postage stamps. -- Pricing of both is based on monopoly by govt fiat. --- Remove the patent protection and market-supply will likely push the price down. -- I'm not advocating ending patent protection, only pointing out that suggestions that drug prices are the result of an invisible hand are false.

    The current price is not based on "market forces". -- In the case of this specific drug -- the corporate owner of the drug, Turing Corp (run by a former hedge-fund guy) did not develop the drug, they bought it from another company. Presumably the selling company made a sizable profit on the drug on its sale to Turing -- so Turing needs to make a profit not only on the development cost of the drug but also the markup it paid to acquire the drug -- thus it raised the "cost hurdle", hence it argues, it needs a higher price.

    This absolutely IS price-gouging. And price-gouging --on products benefiting from a government monopoly, and on products governing one's health is vastly different from gouging on (Apple-) gadgets which are entirely discretionary. Its unfortunate that Obama's healthcare reform did not tackle this issue. Just as its equally troubling that neither party wishes to address this issue. --- One more reason why Washington outsiders are so popular this election cycle...
  • edited September 2015
    @Edmond - I'm just saying there has to be morality to Capitalism. Stop labeling a decent capitalist as socialist or communist, and outlaw objectivism.

    I've said this before. We are not living in a Capitalistic society. We are living in an Objectivist one. Find me a poor Objectivist. All we end up doing is blaming Capitalism for all our woes which is wrong.

    You can market and iPad and charge a lofty price for it. It is silly to do that for a drug. Unless of course you can convince people they have Restless Leg Syndrome or my Wife Is About To Kill Me Phobia, or whatever else we want to come up with. This is not about whether Healthcare is a right. This is about degeneration of society, plain and simple.
  • Edmond said:

    Its unfortunate that Obama's healthcare reform did not tackle this issue. Just as its equally troubling that neither party wishes to address this issue. --- One more reason why Washington outsiders are so popular this election cycle...

    Why the construction of the ACA did not address the issue of high drug pricing is fairly straightforward.

    The answer is similar as to why the lowest cost healthcare option wasn't really on the table during the ACA discussions, or why we can't negotiate drug pricing via Medicare Part D. Single payer, or Medicare for all was the lowest cost option, but big pharma plus the insurers made sure that wasn't up for discussion. We still allow multiple pounds of flesh in terms of profit within our healthcare delivery system.

    It appears we may be taking baby steps towards this solution, but we shall see.
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