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

It's hard to defend, but at the same time I can understand the companies wanting to make a profit... that said Martin comes across as aggressive and one track minded (money).

It's hard to move away from a profit making model when that's where it's all based on. In an ideal world it wouldn't be profit making, but then there would be less drive for developing cures.
 
I have no problem with a company making a profit but a 750% markup on a $1 pill is excessive, it's not like the prior research hasn't been paid off already.

This isn't about 'future research' this is about profit pure and simple.... and yes he looks like a 'lovely' person too.

And we wonder why the nhs is always short of money in the UK, with the prices on certain treatments I'm surprised we even bother...
 
All current users should make a stand and not buy the drug at the new price, supply/demand should mean the price will reduce.
 
Greebo said:
There wont be any life saving drugs if you did that.
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Cannabis taken correctly is a life saving subtance, we have Dupont to thank for how that one turned out.
It's a plant, so it can't be patented, they couldn't profit from it, it can grow any where, we wouldn't need to depend on companies to produce it for us, and we could self medicate with it.
Dupont campaigned to classify it as a drug and made it illegal. All because they couldn't make money from it. And they won.
Life saving drugs should be free.
 
His interviews + some of his retweets suggests that it isn't so bad and that it will genuinely go to R&D and they'll publish the figures to back that. On the other hand, I still haven't seen a full justification of the price. If it was $75 i'd just about accept it, but $750 seems insane.

He may quote other companies behaviour etc, but two wrongs don't make a right and if this inadvertently brings more publicity towards other big brands and their 500000% increases then that's great. I doubt many of them want the news focusing on this for too long
 
Freefaller said:
It's hard to defend, but at the same time I can understand the companies wanting to make a profit... that said Martin comes across as aggressive and one track minded (money).

It's hard to move away from a profit making model when that's where it's all based on. In an ideal world it wouldn't be profit making, but then there would be less drive for developing cures.
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I don't mind people making money, but I do think they kinda have to earn it. If they'd taken a risk and invested in researching this drug then that's one thing, this is them just buying the rights to something that someone else took a risk on 62 years ago and increasing the price because they know their customers are literally dead if they don't buy it. It might be legal but it's not moral and I say it shouldn't be legal.
 
This is a classical case of predatory behaviour in big pharma. They bought the patent for the drug in August, they know many desperate, ill people have no choice but to buy it and they set an exorbitant price for a nice, fat profit.
 
Greebo said:
so all life saving drugs should be sold at minimal profit margins then? There wont be any life saving drugs if you did that.
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I think pharmaceutical companies should be able to charge a price on new drugs that recoups their R&D costs, including failed research - hell I don't even have a problem with them making a profit as long as they don't take the mick, but that's not what's happened here - he's bought the rights to a drug that someone else has R&D'd and presumably recouped all their costs because it was so cheap beforehand (and performed 62 years ago).
 
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$5m in revenues, 100 pill treatment, $7.50 a pill. Circa 7,000 dependents and he claims half are given pills for free or for $1.

At 100% conversion that's $260m in revenues, most of which would be profit. He needs about a 10% conversion rate of the existing user base in order to recoup the entire investment in 1 year.

There is the pharma industry hard at work for all to see. In the above charts R&D is matched by marketing spend, surely something is badly wrong?
 
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