Breitbart:
First of Four Parts…
The Pharma Companies In the Crosshairs
During last year’s presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump said that if elected, he would save the federal government billions by forcing the pharmaceutical companies to negotiate—that is, lower—their prices.
On January 11, 2017, President-elect Trump said that the pharma companies were “getting away with murder” in their pricing, and reiterated his demand for new competition policies aimed at bringing down costs.
On January 31, President Trump met face-to-face with top executives and offered a more nuanced exposition of his thinking. First, he reiterated his oft-expressed point about the value of market forces:
US drug companies have produced extraordinary results for our country, but the prices have been astronomical. . . . We have to get the prices down. . . . Competition [is] the key to lower drug prices.
Second, Trump demonstrated that he fully understood the life-saving value of medical innovation: “New drugs have led to longer, healthier lives—we all know that—but we have to do better accelerating cures.” (This author has taken note of Trump’s advocacy of a “Cure Strategy” many times, including here and here.)
“Big Pharma” ought to take all of Trump’s words to heart, because the President is putting forth a balanced package that includes a carrot, as well as a stick. By contrast, most other politicians, at least the ones who are most vocal, are brandishing only the stick. more here
Mr. Trump, if competition is good then why does the govt have a
strangleholdmonopoly on so much of health care?Uncle Al, President Trump has been in office 34 days. 28 years of corruption and 8 years of usurpation is gonna take awhile to untangle.
Duh.
@Rock – So you must think it is too early to even talk about the underlying reason why U.S. health care is so expensive and screwed up?
@Rock – Oh, and be careful how you toss those “Duhs” around.
It’s a very cozy arrangement. Big pharma gets the government to keep their foreign competitors out, even their own cheaper products sold overseas out, and in return they kick back to FDA “fines” for usually trivial infractions. Most big pharma companies are paying a fine of some kind most of the time, they simply accept it as a part of the racket.
Free market, open competition.
“Jiffydoc end of month special;Dr. biddyboombots half off on rectal exams”.
The guberment’s job should only be to make sure medpros are qualified and not crooks in latex gloves.
I’ve been cash n carry anyway, since bammycare took my insurance.
It takes just as long, if not longer, to straighten out something, than it did to screw it up in the first place.
I’ve read (over the years) that some countries don’t allow big pharma to pass along the cost of development if the drug was not created in that country, so we pay that cost. Basically, we are paying for someone else to get cheaper drugs than we get.
Up here in the Great White North drugs are generally cheaper then down south. The reason for that is an Act that was passed decades ago that, in part, was the result of negotiations with the provinces, the feds and the pharmaceutical companies called the Patent Medicine Review Act. Part of this act was an agreement to limit prices to negotiated amounts for each new drug coming on the market and in return the patent period for that drug was extended so that a generic equivalent had to wait a few more years (I seem to remember five years but I could be wrong) before being allowed to on the market. There’s probably a lot more to it then that but I think that forms the basis of the agreement. Everyone was more or less happy with the agreement. The only reason I’m commenting is to show that you can strike a deal with the manufacturers. Having said that, the fact that Canada’s population is one tenth that of the States probably worked in our favour.
1. Where in the fuck is the generic insulin!!!!
2. I just refilled my amitriptyline, a generic that has been around forever. It went from $10 to $45 in one month!!
There are multiple problems with the govt/pharma interactions but one thing that would be fairly simple to fix is the patent situation. For new drug patent protection, a pharmaceutical co. has to apply for a patent before any testing or clinical trials take place, and that process takes a big chunk of the 20-year patent life before the company makes any money selling the drug. It makes more sense to start the 20-year clock once the drug is approved for use, and then to prohibit any extensions on the time.
One of the legitimate reasons drugs are so expensive is that the approval process can cost many millions of dollars and the company, being publicly traded, has to recoup its investment as profitably as possible in a very short time in order to satisfy its owners: the share holders.
There’s still be lots of nasty problems, but making this change would be a decent little first step.
Uncle Al I thought that Patents were only good for 10 years, (not 20) but pharma companies got 13 years because of the development phase. I could be wrong about that but I used to be pretty certain that was the time frame.
10 years is not all that long considering how many billions it costs for most drug development these days.
drug companies don’t always apply for a patent. If their drug is so complex it can’t be identified easily the “process” for making the compound can be tested just like a regular drug and the “process” gets approved for manufacturing by the FDA but is held as a “trade secret” so it protects them for ever or until another company can get their own secret “process” approved by the FDA. Time release formulas are usually “trade secret” and that formula combined with chemicals that are not patented are very common.
Drug companies can also “evergreen’ patents by combining an old drug with a new delivery system. This leads to $300 epipens and $600 inhalers that deliver medicine that was patented in the 1960’s and would cost $5-$10 in a free market.
Of course, the new system will still have the 10 year patent protection only. And there is nothing to stop a customer from buying the old technology and the old delivery system and there is nothing to keep a generic manufacturing from selling them.