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Company Hikes Price 5,000% For Life-Saving Cancer and AIDS Drug

Quote:

There is a saying in the medical field that real profit is found in treatment as opposed to the cure. Never has that been proven truer than with the recent price surge in Daraprim, a drug used to fight a common parasite that is found in more than 60 million Americans and can be deadly to pregnant women as well as both cancer and AIDS patients.

Just how big of a surge has there been in the price?

About 5,000%

The drug, which was recently selling for $13.50 per pill, now has a new price tag of $750!

It hasn’t been reinvented, or improved in any discernible way. The only change has been to who owns the rights to the drug. Impax, a medium-sized pharmaceutical company sold the rights to the drug to Turing Pharmaceuticals, a much larger company who decided a price increase was necessary.

“This is a tremendous increase,” said Judith Aberg, a spokesperson for the HIV Medicine Association. “Even patients with insurance could have trouble affording the medication,” she said. A monthly course of Daraprim will now cost consumers $75,000. And even with insurance, patients would have to lay out an enormous co-pay to keep the Toxoplasma parasite from killing them.

Sadly, increases such as this one are becoming more and more common even as fewer Americans can afford prescription drugs for the most basic healthcare needs.

Last year the cost of Captoprill, a generic blood pressure medication, increased more than 2,700% while albuterol sulfate, an asthma medication, increased more than 3,400% according to the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) statistics.

With the sharp increase in prices has come greater media scrutiny and political maneuvering in an attempt to reign in the yearly increases which are driving huge pharmaceutical industry and health insurance company profits at the expense of American citizens.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), along with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md), has recently introduced a new bill aimed at keeping generic drugs affordable.

“The short answer is greed,” Sanders said. “They can do it. They can get away with it. They can make outrageous sums of profits and money on this and that’s what they’re doing. Our job in Congress is to say to these drug companies that you can’t keep ripping off the American people.”

While citing raw material shortages, manufacturing disruptions, and factory closings as the reason for such rapid increase in prices, industry leader Merck reported $42.2 billion in global sales for 2014 with just over $9.7 billion in profit.

If reading those numbers makes you feel like you are going to have a heart attack…don’t, because you probably can’t afford the treatment.

http://usuncut.com/news/company-hike...-and-aids-drug

All done by the sociopath CEO Martin Shkreli, who did a similar thing last year when he introduced a 20-fold price increase for Thiola, a drug used to treat Cystinuria.

Just wanted to enlighten people as to how much of a piece of **** this human being is.

What an utter **** of a human being.

#whatwouldheinzdo

In all seriousness this is a morally devoid situation it gives you that hollow feeling to hear about.

This is why Britain must hang on to the NHS. Sadly or should I say frighteningly, I don't see it being too long before we too have an American type health system where people will die because they can't afford treatment or the appropriate drugs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DemolitionRed (Post 8164530)

Absolutely. And we should look into ways that we can employ people to make these drugs for the cheapest way possible, for NHS use only, to stop things like this preventing people from getting proper treatment.

What about all this cancer research that charities collect for from the public... once they find a cure they flog it to the pharmaceutical companies and then we're denied it :/

It's probably already been cured 10 times over. Cancer is a multi-billion £££ industry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier (Post 8165023)

It's probably already been cured 10 times over. Cancer is a multi-billion £££ industry.

Yes I agree, I've always thought it odd there's a 1 in 3 chance yet there's never been a very high profile sufferer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoshBB (Post 8164691)

the NHS is already making choices though on what drugs they can use and those treatments that are too expensive.

The pharmaceutical companies invest huge amounts to bring products to market and get zero help from governments usually. They also have to pay for those drugs that got rejected along the way for a multitude of reasons. So, when a company releases a drug, it is patented, and during that period, they can charge what they like. These drugs of course tend to be the cutting edge ones that make a real difference.

Once the patent period ends, other companies are free to make generic copies of those drugs at vastly reduced prices. It is NHS policy to always use the generic variants when they are available, but they are held to ransom during the patent period if a company decides to charge the earth for a product. The NHS won't and couldn't afford to do the research that the big pharmas do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitontheslide (Post 8165389)

What a brilliant and informative post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitontheslide (Post 8165389)

the NHS is already making choices though on what drugs they can use and those treatments that are too expensive.

The pharmaceutical companies invest huge amounts to bring products to market and get zero help from governments usually. They also have to pay for those drugs that got rejected along the way for a multitude of reasons. So, when a company releases a drug, it is patented, and during that period, they can charge what they like. These drugs of course tend to be the cutting edge ones that make a real difference.

Once the patent period ends, other companies are free to make generic copies of those drugs at vastly reduced prices. It is NHS policy to always use the generic variants when they are available, but they are held to ransom during the patent period if a company decides to charge the earth for a product. The NHS won't and couldn't afford to do the research that the big pharmas do.

That seems to be the opposite of what's happened in this instance, the patent holder has sold the licence to another company ...it's them that have hiked the price, they didn't develop or patent the drug.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 8165427)

if they have sold the patent on, it probably still applies, so the new owner of the patent has hiked it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitontheslide (Post 8165459)

if they have sold the patent on, it probably still applies, so the new owner of the patent has hiked it.

Yes I gathered that but they didn't develop or patent the drug so why the hike?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 8165482)

Yes I gathered that but they didn't develop or patent the drug so why the hike?

i don't know the specific details, but I would imagine the original inventors have sold the patent on to the next company for a fee to get a more immediate cash flow in. The patent runs for a number of years and the new company will have hiked the price to recoup that fee and make a tidy profit for itself for the remaining duration of the patent.

it looks like the price may be coming down

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34332363

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitontheslide (Post 8165492)

You would have thought the company who had the drug originally could've done that and exploited people for profit to recoup their outlay, hopefully this news today will cap the costs in monetary terms and in lives.

welcome to the world of Big-Pharma

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 8165482)

Yes I gathered that but they didn't develop or patent the drug so why the hike?

Here's why:

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/i...p_k_r_qKwAY8vf

In this life, one thing counts
In the bank, large amounts
I'm afraid these don't grow on trees,
You've got to pick-a-pocket or two

You've got to pick-a-pocket or two, boys,
You've got to pick-a-pocket or two.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitontheslide (Post 8170605)

it looks like the price may be coming down

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34332363

That makes sense

Young Boss

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 8170661)

looking at the details, the price was only applicable in the USA, its available very cheaply in the UK.

Also, the amount a pharma company can charge during the patent period in the UK is capped and agreed with the NHS, so a much more agreeable and sensible system is in operation here.

This whole patent thing seems really wrong to me.. saving lives is more important than a company getting an extra 0 on the end of their paycheck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoshBB (Post 8171075)

This whole patent thing seems really wrong to me.. saving lives is more important than a company getting an extra 0 on the end of their paycheck.

Without the patent safe guard no company would invest in the research to provide the new drugs, so it would kill any future progress stone dead.

Just to provide perspective:

The pharms industry is valued at $1 trillion, pharm companies make around 20% profit

Only 1 in 5000 new drugs makes it to market.

Each drug costs around 1.5 - 2.5 billion to develop and averages around 10 years to develop.

Its a huge and very risky area, and 20% profit is tiny compared to many other industries.