Drug's 5,000% price increase, where's the justification?

Kronos · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:35

US pharmaceutical company defends 5,000% price increase,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34320413
except on reading the article on the BBC I cannot see any real justification for such a massive increase and in fact the CEO Martin Shkreli comes across as a thoroughly unpleasant person.

So justified or not?

scorza · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:49

I was just about to post this, waits for the neo-libertards to come in and start moaning about the politics of envy :rolleyes:

OhEsEcks · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:50

scorza said:
waits for the neo-libertards to come in and start moaning about the politics of envy

What?

scorza · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:53

OhEsEcks said:
What?

I'm waiting for the neo-libertards to come into this thread and start moaning about the politics of envy. Hope that clarifies things for you.

OhEsEcks · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:53

scorza said:
I'm waiting for the neo-libertards to come into this thread and start moaning about the politics of envy. Hope that clarifies things for you.

It doesn't. You're still making no sense.

darkgen · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:54

Certainly a novel costing approach for Pharma. I’m surprised given the age the drug it isn’t off patent and a variety of cheap clones aren’t available.
Launch the drug at a premium; companies need to recoup their research and development costs.

coolsurfer · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:57

No doubt the Indians will produce a cheap generic version. Where there's a market, Indian pharma delivers.

estebanrey · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:57

OhEsEcks said:
It doesn't. You're still making no sense.

He is, did you read the article and have you ever been on GD before?

If you don't understand what he means, try looking pretty much any thread on tax avoidance here.

scorza · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:57

The little ***** CEO's excuse for the price hike is that the drug is undervalued compared to other life saving drugs.

Cosimo · 22 Sep 2015 at 08:59

Kronos said:
So justified or not?

Worth watching this before you judge:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-09-21/why-turing-increased-price-of-daraprim-over-500-

coolsurfer · 22 Sep 2015 at 09:01

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0P4r9fcy1o

There are other drugs that are most expensive and more common than HIV.

The company doesn't make a profit and he wants to change that. Fair game.

A biotech company is a business and business's I'm sure this one isn't a charity. They give low cost to the third world and this should be subsidised by the richer first world and at least let the company make a profit.

Diagro · 22 Sep 2015 at 09:06

Cosimo said:
Worth watching this before you judge:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-09-21/why-turing-increased-price-of-daraprim-over-500-

I dont like his forced smile.

Greebo · 22 Sep 2015 at 09:12

Always the same in the pharmaceutical industry. They spend billions on research, then a few promising drugs go to trials and some are kicked out. Then a few go to human trials and get passed by the authorities and then the finally sell them and have a monopoly for 10 years.

Repeat.

Billions is spent every year on developing drugs which never come to market. The drugs which do then have to subsidise this. So what if it only costs $1 to make. You have to recoup all the money for the 100 which failed.

Look at Anadin. £3.47 as a brand from the shops. Same drug as a tesco's value range is 23p. And they make a profit. So from this we can probably ascertain that the Anadin cost about 2p to make so about 17000% profit. I dont see anybody complaining about their margins?

estebanrey · 22 Sep 2015 at 09:16

Diagro said:
I dont like his forced smile.

The bit where he stares at the camera with that gurn on his face and says "I think profits are a great thing for maintaining your corporate existence"

Personally I think making life saving drugs as attainable as is possible is great thing for maintaining your human compassion existence.

But I guess that's what happens when you hire a former hedge-fund manager to run a pharmaceutical company.

Cosimo · 22 Sep 2015 at 09:18

Diagro said:
I dont like his forced smile.

That's how the GD jury makes its decisions.

Orionaut · 22 Sep 2015 at 09:20

coolsurfer said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0P4r9fcy1o

There are other drugs that are most expensive and more common than HIV.

The company doesn't make a profit and he wants to change that. Fair game.

A biotech company is a business and business's I'm sure this one isn't a charity. They give low cost to the third world and this should be subsidised by the richer first world and at least let the company make a profit.

Indeed,

While the hike seems excessive. The case that the company needs to make a "Good" profit on the cheap drugs that it can sell a lot of to be able to afford to develop the very expensive drugs that there will never really be much demand for is a valid one.

In response to the ninja-edit

I find a certain irony in that the people who are likly to be most outraged by this pricing strategy are the same people who are absolutely fine with socialist Governments gouging the "Rich" in order to subsidize the "Poor". It is only outrageous when a private corporation does it!

Diagro · 22 Sep 2015 at 09:24

I watched his whole video.

Actually he is fine, and what he is doing is good.

Let him carry on

Danthus · 22 Sep 2015 at 10:32

I am not sure which is worse, the price hike or the people defending it.

scorza · 22 Sep 2015 at 10:42

Orionaut said:
Indeed,

While the hike seems excessive. The case that the company needs to make a "Good" profit on the cheap drugs that it can sell a lot of to be able to afford to develop the very expensive drugs that there will never really be much demand for is a valid one.

And this outweighs the argument that people will die sooner, or suffer increased discomfort as a result of the price hike?

Orionaut said:
I find a certain irony in that the people who are likly to be most outraged by this pricing strategy are the same people who are absolutely fine with socialist Governments gouging the "Rich" in order to subsidize the "Poor". It is only outrageous when a private corporation does it!

Yes, that's because rich people "subsidising" the poor is generally how things work in a sound, developed economy, when poor people start subsidising the rich, then that does tend to indicate something isn't quite right - it's a feature of all third-world economies.

Greebo · 22 Sep 2015 at 10:55

its simple economics. If you dont like the price, dont buy it.

The difficulty comes in with that drug companies make things which keep people alive and therefore people think they should be sold at cost or minimal profit margin.

If they did that they would never be any new drugs developed for anything else. Full stop.

I doubt there is a single life saving drug that costs more than a dollar to make int he world.

If you are going to pick on this one company, you have to pick on the entire pharmaceutical industry.