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NYT: Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight


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Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection.

The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html?referrer=&_r=0

More at the link.

CEO: 5,000-percent drug price hike "not excessive at all"

"

"There's no doubt, I'm a capitalist. I'm trying to create a big drug company, a successful drug company, a profitable drug company," he said. "We're trying to flourish, but we're also -- our first and primary stakeholders are patients, there's no doubt about that."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/turing-pharmaceuticals-ceo-martin-shkreli-defends-5000-percent-price-hike-on-daraprim-drug/

This kid. This punk kid, at 32, owns a drug company. The epitome of American corporate greed.

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This kid. This punk kid, at 32, owns a drug company. The epitome of American corporate greed.

 

Developing new drugs is a very high risk and costly proposition. But the pharma companies need to be more transparent on costs if they want to avoid greater regulation.

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Watch providers deny Rx's for it now. I worked at a Biotech for almost a decade. They kept raising the price of one drug by 10% a year...and ever year Insurance co's would start denying more and more patients to around a bump of 10%. So, they thought they'd get cute and raise it 9.8% one year.

 

Too late, needed more risk factors to get approved. Sales/Marketing was cleaned out. 

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I thought a patent was only valid for 20 years after filing?

 

The drugs are generics and off patents.  There are then 3 factors:

 

1.  Supply and demand.  For drugs that are in low demand does it make sense for another company to invest the technology and expertise to make the drug.  If not, you can charge a lot.  Infrastructure to make drugs can be very expensive, and if I cut the price of the drug after you've invested in the infrastructure, good luck making your money back.

 

2.  There are legal marketing agreements ("Glaxo sold United States marketing rights to CorePharma in 2010.").  Glaxo has essentially agreed to not sell one of the drugs in the US (for a price).  This eliminates one company from the competition.

 

3.  Lastly, there is more in a medicine than the drug and just because you know what the drug is doesn't mean you know how to put it together with other things to make a medicine, and even if none of it is covered by a patent, it doesn't mean I have to tell my competitors so if I can keep my competitors from getting their hands on it, then I'm still good.

 

"With the price now high, other companies could conceivably make generic copies, since patents have long expired. One factor that could discourage that option is that Daraprim’s distribution is now tightly controlled, making it harder for generic companies to get the samples they need for the required testing."

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Developing new drugs is a very high risk and costly proposition. But the pharma companies need to be more transparent on costs if they want to avoid greater regulation.

 

They will argue that money goes towards

 

#1. Pharmacovigilance 

#2. Cost of developing future products

 

Both are true. How much always depends. 

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LOL A little sarcasm to start the day works well. I have been rallying about prescription drug costs for years. Apparently Hillary and #feeltheBern are listening. Prescription drugs are the biggest drain on our health care system.

I would tend to agree. Don't know how to go about changing the culture though.

Some would say, "loosen the regulations" but that's a hard sell in the drug company. Plus, there's the whole general health of the population out there. Can't let them start releasing dick pills that makes the heart explode.

Developing new drugs is a very high risk and costly proposition. But the pharma companies need to be more transparent on costs if they want to avoid greater regulation.

This is an old drug, that already existed. For like 60 years.

Used to sell for $13 a pill, now sells at $700 a pill... overnight.

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LOL  A little sarcasm to start the day works well.  I have been rallying about prescription drug costs for years.  Apparently Hillary and #feeltheBern are listening.  Prescription drugs are the biggest drain on our health care system.

 

 

Prescription drugs are less than 10% of healthcare costs. Still way to high, but not the biggest driver. 

 

My objection is that over prescription is bad medicine, in theory, but the practice exists because most people are unlikely to change their behavior if they can take a fistfull of pills instead. I've had co-workers who take their medication to counter the effects of being obese before they drove to McDonalds and get supersized. Daily.

They will argue that money goes towards

 

#1. Pharmacovigilance 

#2. Cost of developing future products

 

Both are true. How much always depends. 

 

RIght. And without providing more transparency they should expect some unwanted legislative oversight.

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I thought a patent was only valid for 20 years after filing?

Who was the Virginia politician who, about 25 years ago, changed his vote on extending the patent for some drug after getting a loan from a lobbyist for the drug company?

The story came out right before the election. He won anyway.

Yay, America.

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Prescription drugs are less than 10% of healthcare costs. Still way to high, but not the biggest driver. 

 

My objection is that over prescription is bad medicine, in theory, but the practice exists because most people are unlikely to change their behavior if they can take a fistfull of pills instead. I've had co-workers who take their medication to counter the effects of being obese before they drove to McDonalds and get supersized. Daily.

 

RIght. And without providing more transparency they should expect some unwanted legislative oversight.

 

 

I don't disagree. In this situation it doesn't matter. But a lot of these companies are multi-national and go through a process differently in different countries.

 

If the drug is 60 years old and can be made cheaper by somebody else on generic with a minor tweak. Power vs. pill or liquid. They should. Still would take years to get going. 

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This is an evil **** using a loophole in the regulatory net to his advantage.  

 

This drug is no longer under patent, but in order to produce your own version of it, you have to do a detailed study comparing your proposed version of the drug to the existing version of drug already on the market under controlled circumstances.   This evil **** controls all supplies of the existing drug, and refuses to give any other company access to it so that they can make their own version.    Meanwhile, he ups the price from $13.50 to $750 per tablet for the drug, one that is necessary to keep millions of people alive.   

 

This company does no research.   This is all just venture capital piracy.   


 

If the drug is 60 years old and can be made cheaper by somebody else on generic with a minor tweak. Power vs. pill or liquid. They should. Still would take years to get going. 

 

 

They can't do it right now, and this evil **** will block it as long as he can.   

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Where is the market for this drug? I am assuming that parasitic infections are not a large market share in the US. Are Non-profits and government agencies the main buyers here?

 

It may help if I read the article.

 

The market is not huge in the US. Maybe ~1500 people annually who are mostly HIV/AIDS patients with weakened immune systems.

 

This drug is dirt cheap in India, where there probably is a higher demand.

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I have been railing on the rising cost of prescription drugs for months now.  I have written to senators, talked to Cardin (MD Senator) in a town hall, spoken with pharmaceutical reps, asked at a meeting of the American Board of Internal Medicine what can be done...etc.  This is a problem easily seen, but so far we stick our heads in the sand until I don't know when.

 

http://thelifewelllived.net/2015/03/10/710/

 

http://thelifewelllived.net/2015/04/01/massive-pharmaceutical-cost-increase-seems-imminent/

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What do you want to know that you don't know?

 

What's the cost/profitability model for drugs that cost, say, $100k per year per patient.

 

Prices of identical drugs in the USA vs Canada vs Europe etc. 'cause if I was selling a product to the Federal Government, they would like to know that no-one ielse is getting the same product at a better price.

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What seems really odd to me is that its a perfectly ok principle for insurance companies/medicare to dictate prices to doctors based on the services offered and doctors must go through absurd amounts of paperwork to code their services correctly just to get paid.  But when someone discusses doing anything remotely similar with drug prices that individual may as well be Joseph Stalin himself.

 

Honestly I don't think there's a simple solution to this-- there's a ton of R&D and CapEx that goes into developing a drug and the people who successfully take those risks deserve a reward on the back end.  But it really bugs me that we can't have an intelligent conversation about this without the word 'Communism' popping up.

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