6 ms·
I suppose the statement you are latching onto is where I said that it is never economically optimal to allow someone to die in exchange for higher profit, so al
by ken47 11y ago
I suppose the statement you are latching onto is where I said that it is never economically optimal to allow someone to die in exchange for higher profit, so allow me to clarify.
In this case, it seems nearly impossible to make a concrete case that links this monopolistically-determined price increase to something that comes close to morally justifying the potential loss of human lives.
And as we know, pharma is not a free market in general, and is certainly not in this specific case, so the idea of the free market setting the price on lives seems inapplicable here.
- codexon 11y agoI don't see how pharma is not a free market in this case. The drug in question isn't even protected by a patent anymore. Other companies are free to create a generic version of it. Government regulation has nothing to do with this. The free market has everything to do with this. The price of a life saving drug is worth either all your money or however much the seller wants to charge for it, as decided by the free market.
- bduerst 11y agoOne of reasons Turing paid $55 million for Daraprim, rather than just produce the chemical compound pyrimethamine, is because it's an approved Medicare drug.
- codexon 11y agoI'm not old enough to use medicare so I don't know the details. But I am willing to bet that if someone started making a cheaper generic version of Daraprim, it would put on the approved list. The reason pyrimethamine isn't on the list is because no one wanted to make a generic version that hardly anyone uses for $1 per pill. And even if it wasn't, the drug was being sold for $1 per pill just a few years ago. You can easily pay that without any insurance at all.
- ken47 11y agoIf you do some research into this particular medicine, you will see that there are clear, non-free market roadblocks to producing a generic version.
- codexon 11y agoI looked into it and I don't find any. It is not patented, and no law forces you to only use the brand Daraprim. If someone created a generic replacement, it would be on the fast track to be approved like every other generic. The synthesis method is even listed publicly. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/4993#section=Use-and-Manufacturing https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/4993#section=Use-a... The only roadblock to a generic version was because no one wanted to compete with $1/pill. FDA information: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/docs/obdetail.cfm?Appl_No=008578&TABLE1=OB_Rx http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/docs/obdetail.... http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/docs/patexclnew.cfm?Appl_No=008578&Product_No=001&table1=OB_Rx http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/docs/patexclne... There are no unexpired patents for this product in the Orange Book Database. There is no unexpired exclusivity for this product.
- zaroth 11y agoWhat do you think it would it reasonably cost to setup a manufacturing line for pyrimethamine and get approval to sell it as a generic in the US?
- ken47 11y agoLook around the responses for the notion of controlled access to the drug, and the obstacles it imposes on putting out a generic.
- bduerst 11y agoYou keep saying generic. Daraprim is a generic, which has a government instituted monopoly, making it not a subject to free market. Others could go through the process to be Medicare approved, but that doesn't change that it's not subject to a free market.
- ken47 11y agoThis is a monopoly, which is, by definition, not subject to the price discovery mechanism of the free market. If you mean that eventually, some sort of force will break up the monopoly and find the true free market price point at the intersection of supply and demand, that is cold comfort to those who may die before that state transition completes.