Pharma profits are too high, but you can’t really tell by that kind of comparison. The parent company (Bristol Myers Squibb) that produces Revlimid has profit margins around 30% which is high, but obviously nowhere near what those numbers suggest.
The difference is the cost of development of both successful drugs and drugs which go nowhere. So if the company made zero profit by reducing prices across the board, the price of Revlimid could come down to $666 per pill, still each costing 25 cents - that obviously still looks crazy!
biologics(this includes cancer biologics, autoimmune,psoriasis, eczema, and some rare diseases) is where pharms make thier money. because they are most thousands a month, wholesale, insurance is very stingy about covering certain biologics. although some do have a “coupon” option.
Oh yeah love that coupon. They approve the first few months to show you it will work and then jack up the price
This fucking disparity is why there’s now a parallel industry revolving around equally questionable alternative treatments.
It’s almost like health care and free market economics aren’t compatible
The pharma industry likes to defend its pricing by saying:
The second pill cost 25¢.
The first pill cost $800 million.
What they never actually say is that the US government (thereby the taxpayers) heavily subsidized most of that cost.
Big Pharma could use its own Mario Brother, just saying.
I’m on board with Wario flat-out eating the next one.
I thought waluigi was going to do the wawawewa dance in their faces
Even if we go by 0 subsidies as an argument, anything past around the 800 thousandth pill sold has already paid for itself and is now pure profit.
The argument deserves to burn alongside whoever uses it to extort people for life saving care.
Also most pharma research is done by public universities that private pharma companies then buy the rights to.
The clinicals tend to be ran by the companies pushing for go to market. Those also cost millions
Most? I’m incredulous but I don’t know the actual answer.
Let’s-a go!
Brave to assume that only one country gives a subsidy.
Australia has the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that does the same thing.
Best selling? Or largest profit margin?
Yah, bestselling is wrong.
Most profitable would be the term.
Drugs can be massively expensive to make with some needing many decades of work so it makes sense they are sold for a lot to gain back that investment. The only issue is if they don’t drop the price after they have recouped the cost and profit they needed. Capitalism strikes again.
You also arent funding the development of the drug that worked, but also the dozen that didnt.
Not saying they arent predatory, just that the math of “The pill only costs $0.25” is a massive oversimplification.
This only has legs if they’re developed without being largely government funded, which to my understanding isn’t true for a lot of drugs.
I think they’d justify that by saying they need to ensure the funds they need for future research on other breakthrough treatments. This is not entirely baseless, but just another nail in the coffin for why medical research shouldn’t be funded primarily through capitalist methods.
thats thier claim, but they recover those R and D within selling the drug for a few years. but we know they are partially if not entirely subsidized by the govt, i think all the pharms do is marketing, and poaching SCIENTISTS willing to do the research, some do fund it as well.
400000% markup seems a bit excessive
Only because you’re the one being charged not the one charging
Reasonably priced recreational drugs:
the 3 addictive powders: $10/oz, pure
Weed: $100/lb
You could actually earn plenty of money at half these prices, but I made allowances for sin taxes.
Have you seen how much it costs to develop novel drugs? It’s definitely a bit excessive, but also probably not as much as you think.
Agreed
A condition of public funding should be that aggregate internal rate of return, exclusive of executive team remuneration, should be published and capped, verified by independent audit.
I don’t know a pharmaceutical that isn’t audited by a big 4 firm, so you have part of that already
a condition would be expected lower cost of what the pharm is charging too.
The patent eventually expires and then the generics come out more cheaply.
it takes 20 years though, in the mean time they can charge how ever they want in the us.
20 years isn’t as long as it seems.
I only had to wait 17 years for lyrica (pregabalin) to go generic. I like it better than gabapentin so 👉👈
It doesn’t look like it is going to be any cheaper
In the United States. Elsewhere in the world it’s significantly cheaper.
Don’t worry, the government subsidies a huge portion of that research already.
Bristol Myers Squibb also makes my cancer drug, Sprycel, which has a similar price tag at just over $18k a month without insurance.
They also make my mother’s heart medication Eliquis, which is similarly costly as well.
Have you considered just not having cancer instead?
Just Turn It Offf dude
Hm I wonder why they can’t find a cure for cancer
There is no such thing as “cancer” there are shit tons of types of cancers caused by shit tons of things.
plus you can get cancer again anyways, hence no cure. if you go in the rabbit hole of cancers, there are types of the same cancer, and subtypes which may have thier own survival rates. such as breast cancer in men is more aggressive than in women, and men have disporpionate susceptibility to lymphomas over women 2:1, 3:1 in alot of cases.
Cures don’t come with a subscription model.
Ironically, one of the forces that push back against that are the much-derided health insurance companies. Health insurance has the exact opposite incentive structure, they prefer a cure over an ongoing treatment.
Also, do you think the owners and executives of pharma companies never get cancer themselves, or never have friends and family with cancer?
In reality the reasons why cures are less common than treatments are complex, it’s not pure evil motivating it. Cures are just hard. Especially for something like cancer, which is not just one single disease but rather an whole vast constellation of different diseases. Some kinds of cancer have been cured, and new cures keep coming out all the time. We just haven’t done them all yet.
I keep telling these people this. Any cure for cancer is going to make it to market because there’s money to be made. If there’s money to be made, somebody is gonna make it, even if it’s not the people making the current treatments who stand to lose out.
Also the clout for releasing a cancer cure. It would definitely boost the company’s valuation.
All it would take is a little competition to solve
Yet apparently we can’t even do that
