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

[Cliff Paul]

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://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/21/drug-goes-from-1350-a-tablet-to-750-overnight.html

best part of the interview is when he smiles and says "profits are a great thing".

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yes, the entire situation is cringe inducing. By the way, is there some secret biotechnology lab hidden deep in Middle America where they vat-grow the slimiest of white dudes and sell them to startups? If this is the public face of their company, I dread to think what the rest of the board looks like.

Of course, everything Slimy White Dude says makes sense from a business perspective. It also demonstrates how little sense it makes to lionise small capital (in fact a larger enterprise, in this situation, would probably be like the gorged, bloated tick, who is still going to suck your blood, but not as much as a starving tick would), and "innovation" in capitalism. Sure, innovation results in new stuff. It also results in companies having to recuperate losses by bleeding their customers dry.

I don't think it's helpful to suggest the drug doesn't need improvement. It might not be a pressing priority, but improving the drug isn't bad. The point is, though, that Slimy White Dude doesn't care about improving the drug. If he could turn a profit selling cyanide, he would.

[Hatshepsut]

If it's 60 years old, it's not under patent protection, so Martin Shkreli is relying on the fact that the substance is now made in only one GlaxoSmithKline plant. Since rights to market a drug are licensed, GlaxoSmithKline doesn't sell it to customers; they sell it to Shkreli at a few bucks a pill, then Shkreli resells it to the pharmacies. Monopoly pricing in action. He's lying, as it was profitable at $13.

Most patients who must have it will probably get it anyway, if they're in a developed country and willing to go bankrupt when the bills arrive; he's hoping to gouge the insurance firms alongside his U.S. patients. (Europe's plans will refuse to pay $750, as will Medicare & Medicaid, but private insurers have less leverage.) I guess if he keeps it that high, a generic maker might come in, but there are a few years to rake money before someone else can set up another plant. He may also be betting no one will compete as the medical condition isn't common, which makes entering the market risky.

We see shit like this all the time in health care, the la-la land of 1890-style monopolies.

[John Nada]

If it's 60 years old, it's not under patent protection, so Martin Shkreli is relying on the fact that the substance is now made in only one GlaxoSmithKline plant. Since rights to market a drug are licensed, GlaxoSmithKline doesn't sell it to customers; they sell it to Shkreli at a few bucks a pill, then Shkreli resells it to the pharmacies. Monopoly pricing in action. He's lying, as it was profitable at $13.And even a few dollars it's a rip off at retail. Gold sells for $0.04 a milligram, street coke twice that as a rip off, yet his company sells this old-ass drug(on the WHO's list of essential drugs) for $10 a milligram! Shit costs pennies to make and GSK likely just buys technical grade or its precursors from plants in China and India for less per ton than that douchebag sells per bottle to people with AIDS. Virtually no enforced labor, safety or environmental regulations, and chemist/engineers paid less than US minimum wage. It's an old chemically simple drug which its synthesis and tableting was long perfected, with long usage in humans and animals.
Most patients who must have it will probably get it anyway, if they're in a developed country and willing to go bankrupt when the bills arrive; he's hoping to gouge the insurance firms alongside his U.S. patients. (Europe's plans will refuse to pay $750, as will Medicare & Medicaid, but private insurers have less leverage.) I guess if he keeps it that high, a generic maker might come in, but there are a few years to rake money before someone else can set up another plant. He may also be betting no one will compete as the medical condition isn't common, which makes entering the market risky.I hope that GSK plant isn't the only place in the world making pyrimethamine. While Shkreli claims that pryimethamine is only approved for toxoplasmosis, it's also approved for malaria, which sadly is common in many places. Even if it's just ripping of the government, insurance companies and a few rich dying people, there's people with AIDS and cancer that will have a harder time finding it since pharmacies likely won't have something so expensive on hand.

Turing(ironic name for a company that markets an expensive drug for AIDS related infections) is claiming that toxoplasmosis is a rare condition and it's unable to to supply the drug to people with this "rare condition". Pyrimethamine is listed as an orphan drug, but for Tay-Sachs and Sandoff diseases. If Turing gets a new orphan drug approval for toxoplasmosis, than they're exemptions from drug trial requirements and pharmaceutical purity, and get government subsidies, grants for research, taxbreaks and exclusive marketing rights for seven years.

Yet T. gondii infections are very widespread(10% in the US, majority of people in many other countries). It's a parasite that infects rats brains, makes them attracted to cats so its host gets eaten. T. gondii reproduces in the cats gut, cat shits it out, rats eat the shit and it repeats. Weird thing is it infects humans' brains too, yet the vast majority of the time it doesn't appear to do anything. However, it's theorized that it may actually alter human behavior too, and is sometimes claimed to be responsible for psychological disorders, increased risk of accidents and unusual attachment cats.

The other drugs this company sells all are potential psychiatric drugs. Oxytocin for lactation, stimulate uterary contractions and incontinence, but off-label it been theorized to promote empathy when used as a nasal spray to go straight to the brain, and may have uses for social-anxiety and autism spectrum(another one of their drugs is being studied for treating autistic symptoms, and was previously studied for depression). Ketamine for anesthesia, tripping, partying and depression(will definately work;)) but GSK has a superior form of it in the works, deeper pockets and the market's flooded with cheap-ass generic forms. What I think this douche is trying to do, is get orphan drug status, then with the new exclusive license, try to market it for psychiactric disorders. Think ads of nasty cartoon protozoans saying they're why you're miserable, so ask you doctor to give you this drug worth more than street heroin.
We see shit like this all the time in health care, the la-la land of 1890-style monopolies.Drugs have an elastic demand. The way "the market" handles healthcare should disprove the subjective theory of value and related neoliberal nonsense. But the "Libertarians" will claim it's because the government won't let the oppressed job-creaters sell useless snake oil, mercury and lead salts, strychnine and heroin+cocaine to children for talking and breathing, and not enough people dying in the streets like the "free market" demands.

[Tim Cornelis]

"The way "the market" handles healthcare should disprove the subjective theory of value"

How exactly?

[Cliff Paul]

Apparently the company's stocks took a small dive after Hillary Clinton's campaign picked up the story and vowed to create a plan to stop "price gouging":

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/drug-683927-shkreli-price.html

[Hatshepsut]

Turing (ironic name for a company that markets an expensive drug for AIDS related infections) ...

Indeed, given Alan Turing's sex life. The situation where a drug is made in only one or two factories worldwide is fairly common; often a generic is simply the compound supplied by its original brand-name maker, then pressed into a tablet of different color & shape. Meanwhile, this is hardly Martin Shkreli's first time around the block:


Shkreli, as it happens, was embroiled in a similar pricing controversy last year, when his former company, Retrophin, acquired rights to an old drug named Thiola, which is used to control a condition that produces incessant kidney stones in its sufferers. Retrophin jacked up the price from $1.50 per pill to more than $30...Benjamin Davies of the University of Pittsburgh...accused him of having "grabbed an old drug, made no changes to it at all, and hiked the price exorbitantly." Shkreli says that after he was ousted from Retrophin (the company is suing him for alleged self-dealing), its board discontinued efforts he had begun to provide financial support for researchers and patients.

LA Times, Sep. 21
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-a-huge-spike-in-the-cost-of-an-old-drug-20150921-column.html

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

For those curious, this is the bourgeois scumbag responsible for this...

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/matthewherper/files/2012/12/0x600.jpg

This piece of shit really does not care about the damage he's going to do. He cares nothing for the blood that will be on his hands because of this. He is a Grade-A sociopath. The absolute definition of an Enemy of the People.

It's almost like the guillotine was MADE for slime like him.

[Cliff Paul]

turns out the guy is a pop punk fan because of course

http://bullettmedia.com/article/turns-out-the-price-gouging-aids-drug-hedge-fund-bro-is-a-super-emo-and-pop-punk-fanboy/

[Hatshepsut]

A teacher today told me...the CEO has the legal rights to do this....

As indeed he does. We communists would like to change that law. I won't pass judgment on Shkreli before knowing whether he throttles kittens and little girls in his bathroom, the one with the gold-plated Jacuzzi tub. I'll settle for a mandated divorce between him and his property.

[Quail]

Every time I see something about this case I struggle to comprehend how anyone could be such a douchebag. Having that little empathy is just beyond me. It's just not okay to condemn people to death to make an easy buck, but I guess not everyone shares my worldview...

[PhoenixAsh]

and there is this: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/price-gouging-pharma-bro-under-investigation-for-corporate-looting-fraud-and-stalking/

[Cliff Paul]

dude is batshit crazy but the focus in the media and on social networks is primarily centered towards him being a shitty person and being "greedy". this ignores the fact that price gouging is a common occurrence in the pharmaceutical industry and not just the work of a few greedy assholes.

[Hatshepsut]

Having that little empathy is just beyond me. It's just not okay to condemn people to death to make an easy buck...

I'm sure Mr. Shkreli tenderly shares your views. Watch him closely on the CNBC video Cliff Paul cites in the OP. Notice how every time the CNBC interviewer brings up the patients, Shkreli changes the subject to how the money he is making funds "innovations that save lives," and when pressed, claims he's giving half the pills up at $1 a bottle anyway.

You see, for a predatory merchant capitalist of this variety, such horrors as "people condemned to death" don't exist because they've been objectified into economic factors. They become "consumers" free to shop elsewhere if they don't like the deal he offers them. If there's nowhere else to shop, well then, it's unfortunate, but the market will of course soon fix that problem, too. Indeed, he will likely cough up the medicine just before the moment of death when he's sure a particular patient has no more money to extort; although some may die simply because of hospital or pharmacy refusal to stock something that costs more per ounce than the treasure of King Tut. :rolleyes:

@ Cliff. Yes, and gouging is more common in the USA than anywhere else in the world.

[PhoenixAsh]

The problem I have is that right now this specific individual is being vilified as everything that is wrong with the world and his personal life is being decimated on Internet digging up everything from his past in order to paint him as a monster.

However...what you very rarely see is the fact that this guy is not a monster but a product of a system that allows for these things to happen. It doesn't matter in this context if he is a psychopath or lacks empathy or even if he stalked his girlfriend...

The fact is that we have a system that specifically endorses profit over people. We also have a system that slashes health care and reduces coverage based on the costs at the consumer/patient level while we do not examine the profiteering of corporations and private enterprises. Health insurance companies raise their prices of insurance because of the costs they have.

This guy is just one example but he is not the problem.

I had a discussion recently where somebody argued that this case was evidence that governments should subsidise medication to keep them affordable. I disagreed. This after all only means that we all pay taxes just to fund corporate profits. Or we pay exorbitant insurance fees to do the same. The root of the problem is both the patent system and the fact that we have no limits to what price you can ask for essential products out of fear that if we regulate that we will lose the private entrepreneurs and nobody wants to take the risk of researching new drugs. This allows people and companies to continue the practice of profit maximalisation.

In other words...we always look for answers on the wrong end.

Now companies have gotten a way with high prices because of the argument that the cost of research means that thet will only start to see a refund after years and years. Which sounds plausible...but yet again this is an indication that there is something profoundly wrong with the system itself.

/rant

[Hatshepsut]

Although Shkreli is getting vilification from fellow hard-boiled capitalists and not just from the left. There is a possibility he may get into trouble with the law as well; some of the stuff he's been up to in connection with promoting his securities is of questionable legality.

The government already funds the basic research behind new drugs, which takes place in universities. Pharmaceutical companies will not risk pumping hundreds of millions into testing substances of unknown therapeutic potential, nor do they contribute much to the state of medical knowledge itself. The portion of the research effort they do undertake involves putting a drug through clinical trials, getting it approved by the regulators, and developing an economical chemical synthesis that can be used commercially. These steps aren't exactly trivial, yet without university-based medical research, Big Pharma would dry right up.

So medicine is "socialized" anyway on its back-room end. It's the problem of distributing it equitably where we see capitalism flop.

Open question remains on whether revolutionary social systems like communism or anarchism would improve the research end of medicine. They would ensure that all citizens receive health care available using extant technology, a proposition which differs materially from research. Stateless social arrangements don't generally favor the highly specialized and centralized enterprise a biomedical science program must be, while traditional DOTP will emphasize delivery over development. This doesn't preclude these systems from making discoveries, but it does cast doubt on the pace.

Leftists might choose to accept some devaluation of speculative science, given that at present we're entering a phase of declining returns on medical innovation. Life expectancy in advanced countries is already fairly close to apparent biological limits, with little reason to suppose the medicine of tomorrow will allow people to reach age 200. Many doctors do not think more than about 10 additional years can be added to 80 that Western Europeans enjoy on average, no matter how sophisticated or difficult the technology brought to bear.

[Antiochus]

There is a super old movie I watched as a kid called "The Long Ships", with Kirk Douglas. The bad guy, a Moorish prince, killed his enemies with a machine that was basically a metal blade/slide that people were placed and forced to slide all the way down (on their ass). I suppose this would be good for this guy.

[Rudolf]

Open question remains on whether revolutionary social systems like communism or anarchism would improve the research end of medicine. They would ensure that all citizens receive health care available using extant technology, a proposition which differs materially from research. Stateless social arrangements don't generally favor the highly specialized and centralized enterprise a biomedical science program must be, while traditional DOTP will emphasize delivery over development. This doesn't preclude these systems from making discoveries, but it does cast doubt on the pace.

You see i'd imagine the potential for R&D would increase drastically after a generation or so as the population of potential scientists expands massively due to changes in access to education which as a result of an increase in those in the field would increase medical knowledge at a much faster rate. Just think of the amount of people globally who have the potential to gain the skills to be a medical researcher but lack the means to do so. Actually, don't think about it, the massive waste of human potential, the stunting of us all, is depressing.

[Klaatu]

Drug-Price Hikes

Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin

Sept. 24, 2015

New York–based Turing Pharmaceuticals recently caught flak for buying an old medication (the drug Daraprim, used to treat a dangerous parasite) and dramatically raising its price to make a profit–from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Although Turing reversed course, a health care industry group cites other examples to show such hikes are becoming common.

DOXYCYCLINE HYCLATE

Common antibiotic

4¢ per tablet in 2013

$3.70 per tablet in 2014

+ 8,281%

ALBUTEROL SULFATE

Used to treat asthma

11¢ per tablet in 2013

$4.34 per tablet in 2014

+ 4,014%

GLYCOPYRROLATE

Used to treat irregular heartbeats during surgery

$6.50 per vial in 2013

$127.70 per vial in 2014

+ 2,728%

DIGOXIN

Used to treat irregular heartbeats and heart failure

11¢ per tablet in 2012

$1.10 per tablet in 2014

+ 884%

DIVALPROEX SODIUM ER

Used to prevent migraines and certain seizures

39¢ per tablet in 2013

$2.93 per tablet in 2014

+ 736%

PRAVASTATIN SODIUM

Used to treat high cholesterol and prevent heart disease

5¢ per tablet in 2013

39¢ per tablet in 2014

+ 573%

Percentages reflect price reporting variations noted in study

SOURCES: U.S. GOVERNMENT; HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN ASSOCIATION

This appears in the October 05, 2015 issue of TIME.

source
http://time.com/4047870/drug-price-hikes/