3 ms·
Interesting thought, is it ethically sound to openly clone this drug and make a generic or is that as bad as hiking up the price?
by alex_hitchins 8y ago
Interesting thought, is it ethically sound to openly clone this drug and make a generic or is that as bad as hiking up the price?
- goombastic 8y agoWhen the alternative is death and suffering, yes. Governments should simply adopt the policy of least resistance and stop enforcing patent walls for companies that do this type of price gouging.
- alex_hitchins 8y agoCompletely agree. I'd like to see more governments doing this. I believe India has created generics for their internal market for expensive drugs.
- matthewmacleod 8y agoNitrofurantoin was discovered in the 50s, and generic versions are widely available. But this particular change is more complex. First, the manufacturer is producing an oral suspension, which is substantially more expensive than equivalent generic tablet formations. Second, the price increase seems to have come about due to a shortage in supply, in turn due to unspecified "new rules on impurities from the FDA". So I guess there's some argument that a limited number of suppliers in the market has pushed up the cost. But the drug is still 3-4 times more expensive than the equivalent oral formulation in the UK, so the definite impression here is "absolutely shameful price-gouging".
- koolba 8y agoThis is a generic. From the article: > Mulye also noted that rival pharmaceutical company Casper Pharma raised the price of its brand-name version of nitrofurantoin, called Furadantin. Casper hiked the price by 182 percent over three years—between 2015 and 2018—bringing a bottle’s list price to $2,800. There’s no ethical issue at all. It’s a purely a business issue of whether the market is worth competing in as a new supplier.