Drug Markup!

[SunsetBengal]

(07-10-2017, 08:34 PM)BenZoo2 Wrote: To a point, yes.  The FDA is trying to get branded meds to the market faster too.  Especially orphan drugs, cancer drugs etc.  

The advertising is a separate animal.  Designed to get patients to the dr asking for the product or to make them aware of a treatment when one may not have existed.  It's all about share of voice.  Pharma companies got together to minimize the pens, pads and other gifts given out.  Prices didn't go down then.    

Drug companies are making jack, I'm not saying they aren't.  They are for profit companies with shareholders to answer to.  Check out income statements from insurance companies too.  The system is broken, no doubt.  

But there's more to it than just a blanket statement of high drug costs.


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Are you sure?  Looks more like pure profitability, to me.

https://mic.com/articles/125688/here-s-how-much-more-the-us-spends-on-medicine-than-everyone-else-in-6-charts#.2NQbgf3zj

Quote:The world has been repulsed by Martin Shkreli, the Turing Pharmaceuticals head and former hedge fund manager who bought the rights to the anti-protozoal drug Daraprim and raised the price by 5,500% overnight.

But while Shkreli's price increase has been denounced by critics as a cash grab that will harm people vulnerable to protozoal infections (like HIV and cancer patients), the pharmaceutical industry at large has been doing similar things for years. Shkreli just provides a convenient villain.
Americans are uniquely screwed when buying medication. Medicine in the U.S. costs much more than in any other comparable countries, due largely to the U.S.' dysfunctional health care system.

Source: Mic/OECD

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, people in the U.S. spend more per capita on medicine than any other surveyed OECD country by large margins, at around $1,000 a year per person. The next closest country is Canada at roughly $771 per year, and many other wealthy countries spend less than half of what the U.S. does on a per capita basis. 
Part of the reason U.S. consumers pay so much for their drugs is a lack of bargaining power. Other countries with universal health care systems negotiate the price of prescription medication with pharmaceutical companies. But in the U.S., only Medicaid and the Department of Veterans Affairs can do so, leaving Medicare out. Instead, Medicare drug prices are negotiated by insurance companies, which have much less leverage to bring down the price of drugs.
The situation is further complicated by a lack of competition in certain drug markets. Twenty-year patent rights for most newly developed drugs ensure many newer treatments remain expensive and unavailable in generic forms.
These factors, along with several others, combine to lead to Americans paying, on average, much more for the same prescription drugs than any other comparable country.

Source: Mic/International Federation of Health Plans

Drug companies say they're saving lives. As people in other countries pay significantly less for prescription drugs, which in many cases are made by U.S. companies, some argue U.S. consumers are essentially subsidizing drug prices in the rest of the world by paying a hefty premium at home. The companies also say the profits enable them to make new, more effective drugs that are expensive to develop.

Shkreli made a similar argument in his defense. Turing Pharmaceuticals issued a statement to Fortune saying the company was "targeting investments that both improve on the current formulation and seek to develop new therapeutics with better clinical profiles that we hope will help eradicate the disease."
For the pharmaceutical companies' part, it's important to note that millions of dollars generated from drug sales are put into research and development for other drugs, the vast majority of which fail. For every successful pill or treatment an American company develops, there are thousands of others that failed during the research phase. The companies still need to pay for all that development, and those costs are often built into the prices of the successful drugs.
However, a number of factors should lessen those costs, including government grants. According to health care researcher Gerard Anderson, most drug companies spent just 12% of their revenue on medical innovation.
"We pay twice as much for brand-name drugs as most other industrialized countries," Anderson told the Washington Post. "But drug companies spend only 12% of their revenues on innovation. So yes, some of that money goes to innovation, but only 12% of it." 
A 2011 study by University of Victoria researchers argued the supposedly extreme price of medication development is exaggerated by "industry-supported economists." The researchers also wrote much of the research cost is bloat, since "85% of new drugs [are] little or no better than existing ones."
The high prices probably aren't necessary. Daraprim, as with many other drugs that have seen their prices shoot through the roof, is already considered an effective treatment with a proven clinical profile. Medical experts consulted by the New York Times said there was no need to raise the price for research and development purposes, with Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai infectious diseases chief Dr. Judith Aberg telling the paper she suspected there was a "very dangerous [...] profit-driven" motive behind the price increase.
All the while, an aging U.S. public spends more and more on drugs with every passing year.

Source: Mic/IMS Institute for Health Informatics/ThinkProgress

Pharmaceutical companies boast some of the highest profit margins of any industry, making the ever-rising cost of drugs seem much like a matter of profit rather than good intentions. Nine out of 10 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies spend more on sales and marketing than basic research, while a system of patent rights is designed to protect profits rather than increase medical knowledge.

[BenZoo2]

Yes sunset, I'm still sure. That Turing case was awful. And I am not holding pharma in high regard. In the absence of artificial pricing, i.e. Government programs, the maker of any product is free to set their own price. Because medicine is a "noble" cause it is held to a higher standard.


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[xxlt]

(07-10-2017, 08:35 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: In the same time frame, Obama was out of the country NINE times apologizing for "America's arrogance," and Trump has played golf, yes, but all of his haters ignore the fact that a lot of times he has been building relations, like when he was golfing with the Japanese Prime Minister.

Trump's critics are ignoring his actions as President and criticizing him for playing golf instead of just living their lives and considering all of the good Trump has done and is working on.

Playing golf with Japanese Prime Minister. That was a major coups! The rest of the world was sooooooooo jealous!


Brad, Queen Trump might as well have been playing with himself.

And you think your drugs cost a lot now? Just wait.

And your health insurance - a guy with preexisting conditions like yours can kiss that goodbye!


But in the mean time keep cheering for him. He's grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

[Au165]

(07-10-2017, 10:52 PM)BenZoo2 Wrote: Because medicine is a "noble" cause it is held to a higher standard.  

Not sure it there is anything noble about it. They are held to a higher standard because they have a consumer base who lacks options. When you build a new phone, consumers have all sorts of options. When you make a life saving drug your options are buy it or die. When you deal in necessities to live you are held to different standards, we apply it to multiple industries and even roll in others after natural disasters.

I'd go after the manufactures through patent law. Make drug patent length dictated by their cost to price ratio. The higher the cost to price ratio the quicker the patent runs out. Allow for industry standard R&D expenses to be applied into the cost structure for development then go from there. I'd also allow special exceptions for drugs designed for low user bases, such as rare disease treatment.

They have the choice to price how they like, and we as a country have the right to remove their IP rights. If you want to try and recoup all those costs quickly then expect competition quickly, if you want to play nicely then we will make the patent length even longer than the current patent.

[BFritz21]

(07-11-2017, 07:08 AM)xxlt Wrote: Playing golf with Japanese Prime Minister. That was a major coups! The rest of the world was sooooooooo jealous!


Brad, Queen Trump might as well have been playing with himself.

Who said anything about making the world jealous?  It's about building relations and discussing things in a more personal manner.  



Also, the point was that he's not just playing golf to play golf and not do anything.

(07-11-2017, 07:08 AM)xxlt Wrote: And you think your drugs cost a lot now? Just wait.

It wasn't working under Obama's plan, so who's to say that this won't be better?

(07-11-2017, 07:08 AM)xxlt Wrote: And your health insurance - a guy with preexisting conditions like yours can kiss that goodbye! 

I have Medicaid and Medicare.

Hopefully this stem cell treatment will allow me to have a full-time job where I can get health insurance, so it won't matter anyways.

(07-11-2017, 07:08 AM)xxlt Wrote: But in the mean time keep cheering for him. He's grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

He's working on things and trying to make progress in the country, but all the haters ignore the good and act like everything should happen overnight.

[JustWinBaby]

(07-10-2017, 04:44 PM)Au165 Wrote: Not really, they write off failed drugs and use that to their advantage. Merck's net sales last year were 39.5B with 25.2B gross profit. They only spent 10B of that on research...

They also have other SG&A expense....you can't just pick and choose what you think it costs to run a business - actual profits average around 20%, which is high relative to other industries but not terribly higher than many tech and other advanced industries.

If you want to say their prices are 5-10% too high, I won't quibble. Of course, this masks that they make most of their margin in the US, but the ROE and R&D has to come from somewhere.


From 2014, I believe:


From 2012, I think:

[xxlt]

(07-11-2017, 06:13 PM)BFritz21 Wrote:

Who said anything about making the world jealous?  It's about building relations and discussing things in a more personal manner.  



Also, the point was that he's not just playing golf to play golf and not do anything.



It wasn't working under Obama's plan, so who's to say that this won't be better?

I have Medicaid and Medicare.

Hopefully this stem cell treatment will allow me to have a full-time job where I can get health insurance, so it won't matter anyways.


He's working on things and trying to make progress in the country, but all the haters ignore the good and act like everything should happen overnight.

Keep telling yourself golf is the Queen's secret diplomatic weapon. It isn't.

Who says Trump's plan won't be better? The CBO and pretty much every economist in the country. But what do economists know?

Trump's plan will cut funding to Medicare and Medicaid. I can see why you feel confident better times are right around the corner.

Good luck with the stem cell deal, but if you would still have a preexisting condition, so yes it would matter, and when premiums go up under Trump care you will need a high five to low six figure salary to afford insurance. I already no people who own very successful businesses struggling to pay their premiums. But, I'm sure the first day you are walking again you will walk right into a job paying $125,000 a year. You will probably only have to work three days a week too, so you'll have plenty of time to play golf with the PM of Japan and Super Trump when they are in town.

What the haters are acting like is he is a liar and a criminal, and completely unqualified to run a small office, not to mention a large country. When he resigns or is impeached don't worry. Lots of people will be blaming the media for making it all up, just like with Nixon.

[NATI BENGALS]

I recently learned i need to get my fat ass in shape. With shitty insurance or no insurance the costs of diabetes medication will rape your bhole.

After republicans wreck health care getting sick is going to be risky fall in a hole never get out type stuff. I need to get it together.