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Do you suppose it could be feasible to create a nonprofit organization which produced low price EpiPens that made just enough to cover expenses?

by warent 8y ago

nathancahill 8y ago
Four Thieves Vinegar Collective: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pngb/how-to-make-your-own-medicine-four-thieves-vinegar-collective https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pngb/how-to-mak... Discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17629436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17629436
- sigstoat 8y ago
  part of what you're paying for with your drugs is quality control to ensure that you 1) made what you wanted to make 2) didn't contaminate it with something you didn't want.
  - morpheuskafka 8y ago
    You should take a look at the documents I FOIAd from FDA (the parts they didn't redact that is--apparently my appeal will take 3 years to be processed). Median Medical Technologies, Inc. (a Pfizer company that produces and owns patents for the EpiPen) violated numerous safety rules and breached aseptic manufacturing multiple times, and did not appropriately investigate failures. Here's one of their violation letters, I was told that sanctions were still being considered for the latest inspection. https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/2017/ucm574981.htm https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BgduIfkAL4SaYVQu1yyJXp08q9kJJGa7?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BgduIfkAL4SaYVQu1yyJ...
sigstoat 8y ago
i don't know what else mylan makes, or how much is epipens, or whatever, but if we look at their 2017 financials, and removed all R&D, they'd have had a profit of ~1.2B on total revenue of ~11.9B. so they could shave an average of 10% off the cost of their product line and still break even. maybe there are other places costs can be cut, but as you'd expected ( http://www.aei.org/publication/the-public-thinks-the-average-company-makes-a-36-profit-margin-which-is-about-5x-too-high-part-ii/ http://www.aei.org/publication/the-public-thinks-the-average... ) they're not wildly more profitable than other companies.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  What % was spent on revenue; a while back it came out that drug companies were spending more on marketing than on R&D whilst arguing they needed special protections because of the high cost of R&D. A low profit company, charging a distant lower amount for probably rely on word-of-mouth + news features to some extent. Also, you can save a lot by not paying shareholders and C-suiters massive amounts.
  - pas 8y ago
    Shareholders are paid from these profits only, no?
savanaly 8y ago
You might be interested to read a bit about the history of people's attempts to bring EpiPen competitors to market in the first part of this blog post [0]. I don't see how it being non-profit would make much of a difference in this case. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs-chairs/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-dr...

Do you suppose it could be feasible to create a nonprofit organization which produced low price EpiPens that made just enough to cover expenses?

by warent 8y ago

Do you suppose it could be feasible to create a nonprofit organization which produced low price EpiPens that made just enough to cover expenses?

nathancahill 8y ago

Four Thieves Vinegar Collective: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pngb/how-to-make-your-own-medicine-four-thieves-vinegar-collective https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pngb/how-to-mak... Discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17629436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17629436

sigstoat 8y ago
part of what you're paying for with your drugs is quality control to ensure that you 1) made what you wanted to make 2) didn't contaminate it with something you didn't want.
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  You should take a look at the documents I FOIAd from FDA (the parts they didn't redact that is--apparently my appeal will take 3 years to be processed). Median Medical Technologies, Inc. (a Pfizer company that produces and owns patents for the EpiPen) violated numerous safety rules and breached aseptic manufacturing multiple times, and did not appropriately investigate failures. Here's one of their violation letters, I was told that sanctions were still being considered for the latest inspection. https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/2017/ucm574981.htm https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BgduIfkAL4SaYVQu1yyJXp08q9kJJGa7?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BgduIfkAL4SaYVQu1yyJ...

sigstoat 8y ago

i don't know what else mylan makes, or how much is epipens, or whatever, but if we look at their 2017 financials, and removed all R&D, they'd have had a profit of ~1.2B on total revenue of ~11.9B. so they could shave an average of 10% off the cost of their product line and still break even. maybe there are other places costs can be cut, but as you'd expected ( http://www.aei.org/publication/the-public-thinks-the-average-company-makes-a-36-profit-margin-which-is-about-5x-too-high-part-ii/ http://www.aei.org/publication/the-public-thinks-the-average... ) they're not wildly more profitable than other companies.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
What % was spent on revenue; a while back it came out that drug companies were spending more on marketing than on R&D whilst arguing they needed special protections because of the high cost of R&D. A low profit company, charging a distant lower amount for probably rely on word-of-mouth + news features to some extent. Also, you can save a lot by not paying shareholders and C-suiters massive amounts.
- pas 8y ago
  Shareholders are paid from these profits only, no?

savanaly 8y ago

You might be interested to read a bit about the history of people's attempts to bring EpiPen competitors to market in the first part of this blog post [0]. I don't see how it being non-profit would make much of a difference in this case. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs-chairs/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-dr...