Gouging.

[Gob]

The head of a US pharmaceutical company has defended his company's decision to raise the price of a 62-year-old medication used by Aids patients by over 5,000%.

That's a face I would never tire of punching.

Turing Pharmaceuticals acquired the rights to Daraprim in August.

CEO Martin Shkreli has said that the company will use the money it makes from sales to research new treatments.

The drug is used treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic affliction that affects people with compromised immune systems.

After Turing's acquisition, a dose of Daraprim in the US increased from $13.50 (£8.70) to $750.

The pill costs about $1 to produce, but Mr Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager, said that does not include other costs like marketing and distribution.

"We needed to turn a profit on this drug," Mr Shkreli told Bloomberg TV. "The companies before us were just giving it away almost."

On Twitter, Mr Shkreli mocked several users who questioned the company's decision, calling one reporter "a moron".

The Infectious Diseases Society of America, the HIV Medicine Association and other health care providers wrote an open letter to Turning, urging the company to reconsider.

"This cost is unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population in need of this medication and unsustainable for the health care system," the groups wrote.

Dr Wendy Armstrong of HIV Medicine Association also disputed the need to develop new treatments for toxoplasmosis.

"This is not an infection where we have been looking for more effective drugs," she told Infectious Disease News.

On Wall Street, biotech shares fell sharply on Monday after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pledged to take action against firms hiking prices for specialty drugs.

"Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous," Mrs Clinton said, citing Daraprim.

[dales]

That's a face I would never tire of punching.

Let me at him!

[rubato]

"Whatever the traffic will bear." The 'wisdom' of Milton Friedman, Ron and Rand Paul, and Ayn Rand.

A practice in business whereby a company charges an amount that might seem excessive, yet is still within the range of what customers will pay for a product or service. Thus, with this concept, the company essentially pushes the price of its product or service to the limit, without going over.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/defin ... z3mRVMwD5E

The alternative is a regulated market, some version of socialism.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

sold his soul to the company store.....

[wesw]

I don t mind a bit of socialized medicine, as long as it is not run by any darned socialists......

[MajGenl.Meade]

I just can't figure out why he's not joining the Republican race?

[Sue U]

I just can't figure out why he's not joining the Republican race?

I didn't know Republicans were actually a race. But that would explain a lot.

ETA

I don't know why you capitalist free marketeers are all offended by this; this guy should be your hero: buying low, selling high, squeezing every nickel out of the market to make a profit for his company's investors. Isn't that exactly what he's supposed to do? What is the problem? This guy is living your dream.

[Econoline]

The long-promised Republican plan to replace Obamacare, embodied in one smirking humanoid.

[Long Run]

But for Daraprim, the patent isn't really the issue. It's the fact that Daraprim isn't a frequently used drug. The New York Times estimates that between 8,000 and 12,000 prescriptions get filled annually. You could only fill about a quarter of a baseball stadium with the number of people who take the drug in a given year.

So think about a generic drug manufacturer looking at the Daraprim situation. There are fixed costs associated with building a new plant (or possible lost revenue on other drugs, if they switch production at an existing plant), getting samples of the drug, and figuring out how to make the generic product.

"You have to be able to sell a good amount to minimize average cost," says Craig Garthwaite, a health economist at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business.

And with Daraprim, there simply isn't a big enough patient population for a competitor to sell a "good amount" to. And this is, more generally, a problem with the markets for drugs that only a small number of patients use. They often aren't big enough to support two competitors.

Moreover, there's risk associated with starting a drug price war. Let's say I decide to launch Sarah's Generic Drug Company, and I'm pretty sure I can break even by slightly undercutting Turing and charging $700. What happens if Turing responds by dropping its price down to $500, or even back to $13.50? It will keep all its patients — and my nascent drug company is likely going bankrupt.

"As an economist, you see a revealed preference in the fact that no one else has entered the market and started making a Daraprim competitor," Garthwaite says. "If this was easy — if you could make artisinal Daraprim and sell it out of your food truck — someone would be doing it. But they're not."

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/22/9373557/da ... tor-turing

Might be a good idea to have a nonprofit drug manufacturer to focus on these type of open-patent drugs that have a limited market to avoid this precise problem. Apparently, there are other drugs that fall into this category. New specialty drugs are a big enough cost-driver of medical inflation, without having these faux-specialty drugs.

[rubato]

But for Daraprim, the patent isn't really the issue. It's the fact that Daraprim isn't a frequently used drug. The New York Times estimates that between 8,000 and 12,000 prescriptions get filled annually. You could only fill about a quarter of a baseball stadium with the number of people who take the drug in a given year.

So think about a generic drug manufacturer looking at the Daraprim situation. There are fixed costs associated with building a new plant (or possible lost revenue on other drugs, if they switch production at an existing plant), getting samples of the drug, and figuring out how to make the generic product.

"You have to be able to sell a good amount to minimize average cost," says Craig Garthwaite, a health economist at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business.

And with Daraprim, there simply isn't a big enough patient population for a competitor to sell a "good amount" to. And this is, more generally, a problem with the markets for drugs that only a small number of patients use. They often aren't big enough to support two competitors.

Moreover, there's risk associated with starting a drug price war. Let's say I decide to launch Sarah's Generic Drug Company, and I'm pretty sure I can break even by slightly undercutting Turing and charging $700. What happens if Turing responds by dropping its price down to $500, or even back to $13.50? It will keep all its patients — and my nascent drug company is likely going bankrupt.

"As an economist, you see a revealed preference in the fact that no one else has entered the market and started making a Daraprim competitor," Garthwaite says. "If this was easy — if you could make artisinal Daraprim and sell it out of your food truck — someone would be doing it. But they're not."

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/22/9373557/da ... tor-turing

Might be a good idea to have a nonprofit drug manufacturer to focus on these type of open-patent drugs that have a limited market to avoid this precise problem. Apparently, there are other drugs that fall into this category. New specialty drugs are a big enough cost-driver of medical inflation, without having these faux-specialty drugs.

So you are admitting that capitalism does not actually work? In the case of drug sales it is a failure?

It does not produce the best product for the lowest price?


Right, well that is why medicine has to be REGULATED.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

The goal of capitalism is not to produce the best product for the lowest price. So your incorrect statement does not provide a valid reason for medicine to be regulated.

Perhaps medicine should be regulated but not because "capitalism does not actually work" as described.

[Long Run]

Leave it up to that right wing rag Mother Jones to come up with the laissez-faire solution -- reduce federal regulation to allow foreign drug makers to sell the medicine in the U.S.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2 ... in-shkreli

[rubato]

The goal of capitalism is not to produce the best product for the lowest price. So your incorrect statement does not provide a valid reason for medicine to be regulated.

Perhaps medicine should be regulated but not because "capitalism does not actually work" as described.

It is the justification of capitalism that it allegedly produces the lowest price for the best product and thus has a valuable utility. "Capitalism" is an economic theory not a person so it has no 'goals'. It is a fit theory when its application achieves our goals.

There are several areas where markets fail and health care is one of them. That is why we have the worst HC in the G-20; all of the other members use highly socialised HC.

Why do you, a putative Christian, justify such brutal practices? "Die or pay up" is ok with you? How different is this from mafia 'protection' rackets?


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Why do you, a putative Christian, justify such brutal practices? "Die or pay up" is ok with you? How different is this from mafia 'protection' rackets?
yrs,
rubato

I think you must be blind:

Perhaps medicine should be regulated but not because "capitalism does not actually work" as described.

As well as a mean and contemptible bigot

[Scooter]

It appears that the latest wonder boy of the pharmaceutical industry is about to get his ass kicked big time:

Last month, Turing Pharmaceuticals LLC, the sole supplier of Daraprim, increased the price of this prescription drug from $13.50 per tablet to a reported $750.00 per tablet. The FDA-approved label for Daraprim indicates that it is prescribed for toxoplasmosis and other types of infections. Toxoplasmosis can be of major concern for patients with weakened immune systems such as patients with HIV/AIDS, pregnant women and children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pyrimethamine works to block folic acid synthesis in the parasite T. gondii, the cause of toxoplasmosis, and leucovorin helps to reverse the negative effects on bone marrow caused by this mechanism of action.

Imprimis is now offering customizable compounded formulations of pyrimethamine and leucovorin in oral capsules starting as low as $99.00 for a 100 count bottle, or at a cost of under a dollar per capsule. Compounded medications may be appropriate for prescription when a commercially-available medicine does not meet the specific needs of a patient. For ordering information, please visit http://www.imprimiscares.com.

Shkreli better hope that whoever fronted the money for this takeover have a lot of patience, and aren't going to collect interest in the form of broken kneecaps.

[Guinevere]

Leave it up to that right wing rag Mother Jones to come up with the laissez-faire solution -- reduce federal regulation to allow foreign drug makers to sell the medicine in the U.S.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2 ... in-shkreli

We prefer to call it pragmatic progressivism.