6 ms·
Big Price Increase for Tuberculosis Drug Is Rescinded
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- artursapek 11y ago"Rodelis reveals almost no information about itself, such as the names of its executives, directors or investors, on its web page. It operates out of Alpharetta, Ga., though the Chao Center’s statement said it was based in Dublin." They sound a lot like a patent troll.
- markvdb 11y ago...with their fiscal headquarters in a tax haven. Dublin? Smells of double Irish and similar fiscal constructions...
- Scoundreller 11y agoThis isn't unusual for a pharma company, or any other big company for that matter. Transfer/keep/develop the IP in a low-tax jurisdiction and then have their US/Canadian/whatever division pay a licensing fee to the corp in that low-tax jurisdiction.
- anigbrowl 11y agoAs an Irish citizen I once again have to apologize for my erstwhile government's perpetuation of this chicanery. The country is becoming the European equivalent of Delaware.
- saryant 11y agoCompanies don't incorporate in Delaware for tax benefits, they do it for the well-understood legal system around business law and predictable courts.
- Scoundreller 11y ago>well-understood legal system around business law and predictable courts. I think Ireland has these as well. Laws and rulings will be in English, so American execs can easily grok what's going on without having to get pesky translations.
- dankohn1 11y agoActually, there's a decent argument that Delaware (and Ireland) act as parasites toward their neighbors. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/rogue-state http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/rogue-state
- anigbrowl 11y agoI was thinking of how credit card companies incorporate in Delaware because there are no restrictions on interest rates, and how other firms set up shop there because Delaware business law allows for ownership to be quite opaque, in a way that's not tolerated when other countries offer it, eg http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571873-how-stop-companies-and-people-dodging-tax-delaware-well-grand-cayman-missing-20 http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571873-how-stop-comp... So I do think it's about 50% what you say and 50% policy.
- lxe 11y agoThis is NOT the currently viral Turing Pharmaceuticals's hike of Daraprim's price (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-...) that's being rescinded. I had no idea that this practice of buying up patents and increasing drug prices is so common. Sounds like the pharmaceuticals market is full of some very unethical folks.
- austenallred 11y agoSounds like handling the PR of buying drug patents and jacking up their price multiple orders of magnitude just became more expensive.
- hughes 11y agoHow to be praised for doubling the price of an essential drug: 1. Set the price to 55x the original 2. Wait for outrage 3. Set the price to 2x the original 4. Profit
- gameshot911 11y agoThe drug was being produced at a loss. Raising the price so that the manufacturer is able to keep producing it is surely preferable to to no drug at all, right?
- kjs3 11y agoThere's an ever so slight difference between "we need to double the price to cover costs and keep the drug available" (which has now been done) and "we need to raise the price by 22 times because fuck you we can".
- bsimpson 11y agoIn fairness it was: 1. "hey, this guy wants to buy this drug that we are producing as a public service but losing money on", 2. "oh shit - he raised the price to an astronomical figure and now we all look bad. oops", 3. "we're getting the rights back before this turns into a giant PR nightmare. while we're at it, let's raise the price to a sustainable level." The article doesn't make it sound like there was any malice on Purdue's part.
- kjs3 11y agoI think you're basically right. If you read between the lines, this looks like a matter of Purdue thinking "let's pass this off to a true private sector entity that will allow the market to fix the pricing/profitability issues we have with this product", only to find out they sold it to a pack of fucking inhuman scum who think "let's see if we can exploit the shit out a vulnerable, sick population" is a business plan. Purdue was clearly naive, but they are clearly not malicious.
- 11y ago
- ck2 11y agoOnly an act of congress could fix this problem, so we are doomed (they have post offices to name before they try to shut them all down).
- octo_t 11y ago> Sounds like the pharmaceuticals market is full of some very unethical folks THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION
- martinflack 11y agoIt would be nice for someone to start a non-profit organization supported by donors that would exist purely to purchase rights to these medicines and keep them relatively low-cost to patients.
- kjs3 11y agoIt would be nice if such an organization didn't need to exist.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoGreat idea, and we could call it "the government".
- AC__ 11y agoThe pharmaceutical industry is just as corrupt as the financial sector. It seems capitalists will be capitalists. A lot of well intentioned companies seem to go this way too. Share holders demand profitable growth, sociopathic execs are brought in and I think the results speak for themselves.
- danharaj 11y agoAbuse of power comes as no surprise.
- derefr 11y agoNo, but capitalists follow the incentives. The surprising thing is that, although nobody likes this, there isn't yet some tax or something to make selfish capitalists avoid doing it.
- panic 11y agoA change to intellectual property laws could also fix the problem. The government could allow others to sell the drug but give a percentage of their revenue to the rights holder.
- derefr 11y agoAnd that is called... a royalty! What the patent system was supposed to be for, in fact.
- andrewpi 11y agoThe drug isn't patented anymore. Apparently the issue is that you need to conduct trials if you want to have permission to make a copy of the drug and to do so you need a supply to compare your new copy with and that was hard to purchase.
- go1979 11y agoI'm surprised about the drug trial bit. I thought generics didn't need to have new trials .. they just need to have the exact same formulation. The oddness is that they need to "reverse engineer" the formulation themselves. The pill's color, shape and markings couldn't be copied though. Can anyone knowledgeable on this critique what I wrote? I got my info during a tour of a generic drug manufacturer's plant a looooong time ago.
- toddbranch 11y ago"Mr. Hasler said this was probably not done because foreign manufacturers were not willing to bear the expense of applying for regulatory approval in the United States to serve a tiny number of patients." Or we could reduce the burden of applying for approval?
- Scoundreller 11y agoI agree. My blood isn't any different than a Europeans' or an Americans', so why duplicate the approval process? It can't be unsafe for one and safe for another just because some imaginary line has been crossed. It would also help to reduce drug shortages if stock could be more easily transferred.
- refurb 11y agoso why duplicate the approval process? It was the separate approval process that prevented an explosion of thalidomide babies in the US.[1] [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defects_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defects_crisi...
- Scoundreller 11y agoIt could also be argued that one process would have prevented the explosions everywhere.
- neurotech1 11y agoThere is actually a FDA "waiver" process known as a "Humanitarian Device Exemption" for medical devices. The FDA does allow compounding pharmacies [0] to produce orphan drugs that are not otherwise available commercially. The big issue with using compounding pharmacies to produce orphan drugs is that these drugs can't be marketed for a specific use. The approval is as much about how the drug is marketed as the drug itself. The reason why the case of Daraprim [1] is so outrageous is that the drug is approved and in production, and the increase is profit for the "marketing" drug company. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compounding#Regulation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compounding#Regulation_in_the_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine
- avemg 11y agoWhat a boon this is for Turing. I'm willing to bet most of the public will not realize it's not the same drug from the earlier price hike story.
- strathmeyer 11y agoIs this the CEO who was trolling on Twitter?
- bsimpson 11y agoNo.
- hkmurakami 11y agoRescinding seems smart so as not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg by way of overarching regulatory overhaul.
- o_nate 11y agoI'm not a patent lawyer, but I don't understand how 62-year old drugs still require licenses to be manufactured? Seems like another case of patent law gone mad.
- refurb 11y agoYou don't understand why there are regulations around manufacturing a selling a prescription drug? Really? I don't know about you, but I kinda like those regulations.
- o_nate 11y agoNo, I understand that, but I thought once a drug's patent expires then any reputable pharmaceutical company could manufacture it as a generic (with the proper testing of course). Is that not the case here?
- andrewpi 11y agoApparently the issue is the testing. You need to purchase a large quantity of pills from the original manufacturer to compare your new batch with and that was hard to obtain.
- o_nate 11y agoAh, I see. It sounds to me like the issue is that there's not enough of a market to attract the interest of another company to get over the initial fixed costs to get the drug approved. Seems like a possible reform would be to streamline the approval process for generics to make this easier.
- jholman 11y agoAlthough the headline is not referencing Daraprim and Turing Pharmaceuticals, some of the content is about that, and there is an embedded video interviewing Shkreli, the Turing CEO. I recommend watching it; I thought it was a very good interview. Shkreli makes his case much more effectively than I'd have predicted. Example: he claims that a treatment course of Daraprim costs less than other drugs that, in his opinion, are comparable (i.e. those other drugs are cures for other similar diseases).