These drugs were developed with public funds and yet are sold at outrageous pricing.
If the pharma industry was at all reasonable about their pricing, this wouldn’t be a consideration at all.
If you take public funds, you can’t charge exorbitant amounts. Seems an easy trade-off decision for them to make.
^ This. R&D in PharmaWorld means mergers and acquisitions; the real moneymakers they scrape from public research, tweak and then charge for.
If you take public funds, you can’t charge exorbitant amounts. Seems an easy trade-off decision for them to make.
Damn I wish that were true. Telecoms got like $4bn decades ago to upgrade American infra…
Not only then, they’re allowed to recoup deployment costs as separate surcharges, not part of plan costs, and they’re still charging for infrastructure they already completed decades ago.
Add about 15% to the sticker price of any cell phone plan because of taxes and those fees.
There should be full backpay/reimbursal from the bullshit profits
Please do it to Eliquis. My fucking insurance just jumped it up to 275 a month.
Edit: also, I don’t have anybody to vent this too. But the hospital just called and I have to have another heart surgery In 22 days. I had open heart surgery 9 months ago. I’m just so fucking tired
Try to stay in good spirits. You’ll make it through!
Hey, I’m really sorry. That sounds really hard. Vent all you want if it helps.
If it’s any consolation, it’s still this month and you’ve likely hit your deductible already… Cries in American healthcare
I’m sorry you are struggling, but remember to take care of yourself. You are worth it, and you can make it through this. ✊️🫶🙌
Eliquis
That’s some crazy shit going on with that drug. I looked it up on Wikipedia just to see what it was, found out it is the 48th most prescribed drug in the US, it is available as generic internationally but not here, and then came across these two tidbits:
In December 2019, the US FDA approved a generic version of apixaban produced jointly by Mylan and Micro Labs. BMS and Pfizer worked quickly to block generics from being created, and in August 2020, they won a patent infringement lawsuit against Sigmapharm, Sunshine Lake, and Unichem, after previously settling patent cases against 25 other companies. In September 2021, a Federal Circuit Court upheld the ruling. The result is that apixaban generics will most likely not be available in the United States until at least 2026, but possibly 2031.
and
Apixaban is one of the ten medications proposed for price negotiations in the US under the Inflation Reduction Act. According to Bristol Myers Squibb the average pay per month per patient for Eliquis is US$55.
So BMS and Pfizer fucked the entire country out of already approved generics, was upheld by a federal circuit court, and multiple people in different places are shitting gold coins if BMS/Pfizer is charging $55 (for a drug that likely costs maybe 1/10th of that to make, just going by the fact that multiple chemically successful generics have been produced) AND your insured price is $275.
So let’s see: BMS and Pfizer is making cash on the federally guaranteed twelve-year monopoly extension, and your insurance company and/or pharmacy is making full hog on that $275, while the uninsured pay roughly DOUBLE that, $600 for 60 tabs (1 month supply).
All I can say is that that’s just far too many different ways for any one situation in life to be that fucked up. No wonder you’re tired, anyone would be. May BMS and Pfizer board members, and their paid lackeys in the courts, all have futures that involve crotch rot that burns with the fire of a thousand suns, and may your heart surgery go wonderfully well.
You win these, dawg
Pharma freakout incoming.
Excuse while I try to find my tiny violin.
I didn’t know nanotech at that scale was possible yet
The violin in question is really just a math model for string theory.
I’ll see myself out.
I just tried to play a note and generated the strong nuclear force.
HELL FUCKING YES
Omg yes!!! I was just ranting the other day that all these drug shortages should come with consequences to the companies. (Looking at you Ozempic) If you can’t produce enough of your drug to keep up with demand then other companies should get a chance at making it. It shouldn’t be the patients that have to suffer.
This is Big Dark Brandon Energy, I love it!
More than that, think of private equity looking for quick and destructive ways to make a buck, including buying the rights to cheap but essential drugs that have been on the market for decades and jacking up the price 5-fold. That is really driving prices in the 2000s. Them boys are already started running away.
The administration will not endorse the widespread use of march-in rights, and is not expected to take action against any individual medicines, said the people familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal decision making.
Important bit from that, lest anyone think they’re actually going to do something.
I would be delighted if they did, but I would also be very surprised if they actually assert these rights on medicines developed with public funds, which is what they should do - just all of the medicines developed with public funds, patents seized, end of story.
Important bit from that, lest anyone think they’re actually going to do something.
They’ll expect us to rejoice as though we can afford the meds our taxes paid to research anyway.
