4 ms·

"The American people are fed up with the blatant profiteering of pharmaceutical company CEOs like Martin Shkreli. It must end." The real problem is all of the

"The American people are fed up with the blatant profiteering of pharmaceutical company CEOs like Martin Shkreli. It must end." The real problem is all of the regulations you need to go through with the FDA to get a drug approved. If it didn't take millions of thousands of dollars and a team of lawyers to get drugs approved in 10 years, the free market would force the hand of these companies and everyone's costs would decrease. The government is equally greedy and more greed will not fix the problem. In fact, most countries have cheaper drug costs because of the R&D that is done in the US. Preventing profit (like what Sanders will inevitably do with his health care plans) will be pretty bad for important drugs worldwide.

dalke 11y ago
Your comment isn't all that relevant as Turing did NOT spend 'millions of thousands of dollars and a team of lawyers to get drugs approved'. Daraprim is a generic which had been available for over 60 years. There were no R&D costs in this case. Instead, Turing was the sole provider of Daraprim. It switched to a closed distribution model so other generic manufacturers couldn't show equivalence, which is needed for FDA approval, then jacked up the price. At least, that's my understanding. In any case, it's far from what you suggest is the case.
gbeforeg 11y ago
There is nothing wrong with requiring research and development in medicine. It keeps everyone safer. Maybe you should look instead at how the US is effectively the only country in the world which allows companies to market prescription drugs to consumers (the other being NZ). This inherently undermines best medical practise and morality. Some mega pharma companies spend up to twice as much on marketing as R&D, literally tens of billions. I for one know where I'd rather have them save a bit of cash. Imagine if they actually competed on making the most effective medicine instead of the best commercials.

dalke 11y ago

Your comment isn't all that relevant as Turing did NOT spend 'millions of thousands of dollars and a team of lawyers to get drugs approved'. Daraprim is a generic which had been available for over 60 years. There were no R&D costs in this case. Instead, Turing was the sole provider of Daraprim. It switched to a closed distribution model so other generic manufacturers couldn't show equivalence, which is needed for FDA approval, then jacked up the price. At least, that's my understanding. In any case, it's far from what you suggest is the case.

gbeforeg 11y ago

There is nothing wrong with requiring research and development in medicine. It keeps everyone safer. Maybe you should look instead at how the US is effectively the only country in the world which allows companies to market prescription drugs to consumers (the other being NZ). This inherently undermines best medical practise and morality. Some mega pharma companies spend up to twice as much on marketing as R&D, literally tens of billions. I for one know where I'd rather have them save a bit of cash. Imagine if they actually competed on making the most effective medicine instead of the best commercials.