Drug price jumps from $20 to $1500

[TheDarkSeed]

Remember that this is the same FDA that said there are no medical benefits from marijuana.

They're probably getting their little cut on the side.

 

[notmeanymore]

this has very little to do with drug companies and everything to do with big government regulation, corrupt politicians, and a corrupt FDA. If there was less government regulation these things would not happen but hey lets fix this with a big Socialist government and lots of regulation and make things worse.
>implying the FDA wasn't corrupt from the start
>implying the law/regulation in this case wasn't in place since before the "Socialist" regulation
A government-financed healthcare would much prefer a $20 drug to a $1500 one, and the regulations were put in place to prevent things like this. You can't blame everything on Socialism.

Ah... protect people from what? Greed for money? That's a byproduct of capitalism.
To protect people from poison. That's what the FDA should be doing. And a monopoly is the opposite of a free market and therefore not capitalism.

QUOTE(TehSkull @ Mar 11 2011, 04:33 AM)

This is in place because the prescription form has been thoroughly tested by the FDA, and they don't want people getting hurt/killed because the drug was compounded wrong.

But they were perfectly fine with the compounded drug before the prescription version came out? I smell a rat.

The drug isn't always compounded the same way across different pharmacies. That's the problem. The FDA tested version could just as easily cost the same $20 price, or maybe slightly more. The FDA isn't setting the prices. It's the drug company who set this price that's abusing the market.

 

[Densetsu]

Do they still have to tweak functional groups these days Densetsu9000? if so they need to take a look at some of the plastics people (change another random part keeping the functional group the same- find any chemical changes.... higher glass temperature or something makes for a more stable compound (or I suppose in medicine delivery mechanism).... nice new patent).
On the other hand there is that changes to the same functional group ruling (pharma patents/IP are a bit outside what I do but the idea was that the pill can be one thing but after ingestion it changes into something else (that may be covered by a patent)- the changes of opiates inside the brain would be an example of the chemistry).


@ others a nice video for this sort of thing (the chemistry and pharmacology basics) http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/342

"or our socialist fire departments"
Not that I am questioning your intention but are there not some fairly interesting cases of jurisdiction (tax) and response?Yep, that is Big Pharma's basic business model. I have to apologize though, I can't cite a specific example in which a specific pharmaceutical company changed a specific functional group in a drug since it's all proprietary information and not readily available online.

Yeah we Americans don't exactly call our fire departments "socialist," but I was just making a point that we pay taxes, the taxes pay for the fire department. It's the same general concept as a single-payer medical system in which everyone would be guaranteed medical care regardless of their income.

Off-topic, but it's interesting to note that in the US, if you've committed a crime, you have a right to an attorney. But if you're sick, you don't have the right to medical care. Ironically, the citizens with the best health care in the US are those who are locked up in the prison system. If you've wronged society, you get better treatment than people who have done everything right and contributed to society. But I digress--this would warrant a whole new topic on its own.


QUOTE(VashTS @ Mar 11 2011, 10:30 AM) We could debate about the human life concept, scientists and drs can't even say if a fetus is life. i know because i asked my doctor if my kid was thinking in there, he said no one knows.

Uh, no.

The ability to think is not a requisite for life. A person who is brain-dead save for basic functions of the brain stem is still considered alive for all intents and purposes. A bacterium meets all of the criteria for the scientific definition of life, and it has absolutely no brain cells.

Yeah, a fetus is alive. We could debate about the human life concept, but you'd lose.

 

[Veho]

Update: FDA will allow the compounded version.

Then K-V sent letters to pharmacies threatening that the FDA would punish them if they compounded their own versions of the drug. On Wednesday, the FDA declared it would do no such thing.
[...]
But the company's pricing announcement this month, coupled with the warning letters K-V sent to pharmacies, aroused a strong reaction from several members of Congress, including Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), as well as patients and medical groups. Critics called the huge increase unfair to patients, private insurers and Medicaid.

In response, the FDA said it had no intention of blocking pharmacies from selling their own versions of Makena.

"In order to support access to this important drug, at this time and under this unique situation, FDA does not intend to take enforcement action against pharmacies that compound [Makena] based on a valid prescription," the agency said in a statement.

Although the FDA has the authority to crack down on compounding pharmacies when they offer products competing with FDA-approved drugs, it is not obligated to do so.

 

[BlueStar]

The ability to think is not a requisite for life. A person who is brain-dead save for basic functions of the brain stem is still considered alive for all intents and purposes. A bacterium meets all of the criteria for the scientific definition of life, and it has absolutely no brain cells.

Yeah, a fetus is alive. We could debate about the human life concept, but you'd lose.

Anyone who says there is a concrete answer to the question is lying, because it depends on your definition of "fetus" and "life" both of which are philosophical questions rather than nice easy scientific ones. One of the factors most often taken into account on this "Is this thing alive" checklist is "Is it self-sustaining" and until a fetus is viable the answer to that question is no, so it would fail at least one test of whether it was alive.

 

[FAST6191]

Thanks for the follow up Veho. Glad it got sorted for the better.

"it had no intention of blocking pharmacies from selling their own versions of Makena"

Is it just me or is that a very interesting choice of words (use of the trade name despite having a far more accepted name)?.

"Although the FDA has the authority to crack down on compounding pharmacies when they offer products competing with FDA-approved drugs"

No objections in matters of actual patent violations (or possibly even accusations- thinking the pharma equivalent of the recent Sony - LG spat) but if a company does an end run around prior art as it were if the FDA still has the ability to come in and say oi (malpractice aside of course) that I feel very uneasy about.

 

[Veho]

No objections in matters of actual patent violations (or possibly even accusations- thinking the pharma equivalent of the recent Sony - LG spat) but if a company does an end run around prior art as it were if the FDA still has the ability to come in and say oi (malpractice aside of course) that I feel very uneasy about.

That bothered me as well. If a company developed the drug themselves, let them have their patent and their exclusivity and their monopoly, but not if it's a widely available, previously known drug ("generally recognized as safe" is the designation, I think). It's like getting a patent on coffee.

 

[luckwii]

Welcome to capitalism.

Quite the opposite. True capitalism would encourage companies to compete for lower prices. Socialism would create higher costs. A good example of capitalism is Walmart. They keep costs low. If you haven't noticed, the US has become socialist. A good example of socialism is Obama's healthcare. Costs have gone up and quality of care will go down. And don't give me the socialist healthcare works in other countries routine, because you have to buy up to get decent care, along with having to pay for it initially in taxes.

 

[Veho]

I'll ignore the blatant generalizations and just point out that this has nothing to do with capitalism versus socialism or even healthcare in general, only with the FDA and some of its weirder regulations.

But since we're on the subject, a "socialist" healthcare would much prefer paying less for a medication, and (barring major corruption which is the fault of individuals and not the system), would quickly overrule a regulation that would make it pay 75 times more for the exact same drug, whereas a "capitalist" healthcare system wouldn't give a fuck.