3 ms·

I’m not sure what kind of R&D the $800 or whatever it costs now Epipen is paying for. R&D for lobbyists? Or profits because the company gamed the market.

brohoolio 8y ago
^famed^gamed
airstrike 8y ago
The EpiPen is one of the "hard to manufacture" drugs I mentioned. Although it is top of mind to many, it is not representative of the market. EDIT: "hard to manufacture" is in quotes because it's what I said in my parent comment (though to be fair I said "costly to manufacture"), but I meant it as an umbrella term for everything that can't be substituted by generics
- dragontamer 8y ago
  If it was hard to manufacture, why is it cheaper in Europe?
- AngryData 8y ago
  There are cheap generics all over. The only patent EpiPen has is the applicator. Generics require you to take a syringe and inject it by hand because the patent prevents competitors from using a similar style spring loaded applicator. The epinephrine used in epipens is extremely cheap to produce.
- Retric 8y ago
  EpiPen is just an epinephrine autoinjector which date back to the 1970’s. The medicine is much older and very cheap ~50 cents. In term of cost syringe‘s cost ~15 cents and work fine in experienced hands, but auto-injection makes them slightly less error prone. It’s litterally over a 300x markup for a rare problem.
- modriano 8y ago
  EpiPens used to cost under $100 for a 2-pack, but now they cost over $600 for a 2-pack. Epinephrine costs like $0.17 per ml, and an EpiPen dose is 0.3 ml. http://mshpriceguide.org/en/single-drug-information/?DMFId=298&searchYear=2014 http://mshpriceguide.org/en/single-drug-information/?DMFId=2...
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    I feel like it's probably worth, to combat the false exoticism, pointing out that "epinephrine" is just a medical industry name for what is generally known as adrenaline. There are no "real" implications to calling it one or the other, but people think differently about "a substance I've never heard of" and a common household name.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  EpiPen is one of the "hard to manufacture" drugs Yeah it must be very hard to manufacture when the manufacturer's revenue is going towards paying off a $465 million settlement for deceptive business practices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector#Price_&_availability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector#Price...
tlrobinson 8y ago
I don't know about Epipen, but it can cost billions to bring new drugs to market https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/11/Tufts-Study-Finds-Big-Rise.html https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/11/Tufts-Study-Find...
- paulie_a 8y ago
  I don't know if it still the case but advertising costs were previously considered r&d so grossly inflating those numbers.
  - refurb 8y ago
    Do you a source? As far as I know, R&D never included advertising.
    - Alex3917 8y ago
      R&D includes a lot of (most?) but not all advertising. It probably doesn't include things like running DTC ads on TV. But it does include things like: - Paying doctors to prescribe the drug to patients for "research purposes." - Paying doctors for their "valuable opinions" about the drug. - Paying for advertising to recruit patients into clinical trials. And so on. I don't think there are any industry-wide statistics, so you'd have to look at the break down for each individual drug (where available). If you read pretty much any book on the pharma industry it will go into this, there are no shortage that you can find on Amazon.
      - refurb 8y ago
        For the first point you mean clinical trials? I wouldn’t call that advertising. The 2nd point sounds like consulting fees, not advertising. And the 3rd point is required to recruit for clinical trials. And the drug doesn’t even have a brand name at the point. Doesn’t seem like what the general public would call advertising.
        8y ago
rhino369 8y ago
Certainly return on capital investment is considered when deciding whether to invest in R&D.
- JAlexoid 8y ago
  New drugs and their acceptance by insurance companies is much more important to me, than price gauging. I invest in pharma companies. The ability to raise the price for a single drug is really the last thing I want in a company I invest. I want long lasting customer base or high impact justifiable expenses, that US HMOs and EU governments will gladly pay(reason why I bought Gilead when I heard about their HepC cure). And Gilead's Truvada strategy, why I divested as a result.
shawnz 8y ago
I don't understand your point. Obviously it's going toward R&D of new drugs unrelated to the EpiPen. What does the price of an EpiPen have to do with how the money is spent?
- dragontamer 8y ago
  Except the company that made EpiPen doesn't even make EpiPen anymore. Mylan bought the rights to make the drug in 2007, and then other companies bought it from Mylan. I forget who owns EpiPen now, but the current owner is very far removed from the original researchers who made that drug.
- zzleeper 8y ago
  That's not how it works. You invest if it's worth investing, not if you just have the money laying around. Paying a few billion dollars to a big pharma company is not going to make them invest more in research. They will instead pay the money out as dividends. The goal of patents is to create incentives for future research, but if you change the rules by increasing the extent of EpiPen patents after the drug was created, where is the incentive?
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    > Paying a few billion dollars to a big pharma company is not going to make them invest more in research. They will instead pay the money out as dividends. This is a misconception. No investor wants their money back. Investors want a promise of MORE money back in the future. If investors wanted their money back immediately, they wouldn't have bought stock in the first place! The vast majority of investors prefer (ex: Tesla) a company to spend all their money asap on infrastructure, research, development, etc. etc. Dividends are a last resort, only to be used if a company doesn't know what to do with its cash. Once a company starts paying dividends, it means that it has run out of ideas for how to invest into the future. Besides: its more tax efficient to grow the stock price rather than to pay the profits back in cash. --------- Even a big company will want to at least appear that it is growing even bigger, through R&D funds and what-not. If you start to give out a lot of dividends, investors will probably take it as a bad sign and flee.

brohoolio 8y ago

^famed^gamed

airstrike 8y ago

The EpiPen is one of the "hard to manufacture" drugs I mentioned. Although it is top of mind to many, it is not representative of the market. EDIT: "hard to manufacture" is in quotes because it's what I said in my parent comment (though to be fair I said "costly to manufacture"), but I meant it as an umbrella term for everything that can't be substituted by generics

dragontamer 8y ago
If it was hard to manufacture, why is it cheaper in Europe?
AngryData 8y ago
There are cheap generics all over. The only patent EpiPen has is the applicator. Generics require you to take a syringe and inject it by hand because the patent prevents competitors from using a similar style spring loaded applicator. The epinephrine used in epipens is extremely cheap to produce.
Retric 8y ago
EpiPen is just an epinephrine autoinjector which date back to the 1970’s. The medicine is much older and very cheap ~50 cents. In term of cost syringe‘s cost ~15 cents and work fine in experienced hands, but auto-injection makes them slightly less error prone. It’s litterally over a 300x markup for a rare problem.
modriano 8y ago
EpiPens used to cost under $100 for a 2-pack, but now they cost over $600 for a 2-pack. Epinephrine costs like $0.17 per ml, and an EpiPen dose is 0.3 ml. http://mshpriceguide.org/en/single-drug-information/?DMFId=298&searchYear=2014 http://mshpriceguide.org/en/single-drug-information/?DMFId=2...
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  I feel like it's probably worth, to combat the false exoticism, pointing out that "epinephrine" is just a medical industry name for what is generally known as adrenaline. There are no "real" implications to calling it one or the other, but people think differently about "a substance I've never heard of" and a common household name.
anigbrowl 8y ago
EpiPen is one of the "hard to manufacture" drugs Yeah it must be very hard to manufacture when the manufacturer's revenue is going towards paying off a $465 million settlement for deceptive business practices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector#Price_&_availability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector#Price...

tlrobinson 8y ago

I don't know about Epipen, but it can cost billions to bring new drugs to market https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/11/Tufts-Study-Finds-Big-Rise.html https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/11/Tufts-Study-Find...

paulie_a 8y ago
I don't know if it still the case but advertising costs were previously considered r&d so grossly inflating those numbers.
- refurb 8y ago
  Do you a source? As far as I know, R&D never included advertising.
  - Alex3917 8y ago
    R&D includes a lot of (most?) but not all advertising. It probably doesn't include things like running DTC ads on TV. But it does include things like: - Paying doctors to prescribe the drug to patients for "research purposes." - Paying doctors for their "valuable opinions" about the drug. - Paying for advertising to recruit patients into clinical trials. And so on. I don't think there are any industry-wide statistics, so you'd have to look at the break down for each individual drug (where available). If you read pretty much any book on the pharma industry it will go into this, there are no shortage that you can find on Amazon.
    - refurb 8y ago
      For the first point you mean clinical trials? I wouldn’t call that advertising. The 2nd point sounds like consulting fees, not advertising. And the 3rd point is required to recruit for clinical trials. And the drug doesn’t even have a brand name at the point. Doesn’t seem like what the general public would call advertising.
      - 8y ago

rhino369 8y ago

Certainly return on capital investment is considered when deciding whether to invest in R&D.

JAlexoid 8y ago
New drugs and their acceptance by insurance companies is much more important to me, than price gauging. I invest in pharma companies. The ability to raise the price for a single drug is really the last thing I want in a company I invest. I want long lasting customer base or high impact justifiable expenses, that US HMOs and EU governments will gladly pay(reason why I bought Gilead when I heard about their HepC cure). And Gilead's Truvada strategy, why I divested as a result.

shawnz 8y ago

I don't understand your point. Obviously it's going toward R&D of new drugs unrelated to the EpiPen. What does the price of an EpiPen have to do with how the money is spent?

dragontamer 8y ago
Except the company that made EpiPen doesn't even make EpiPen anymore. Mylan bought the rights to make the drug in 2007, and then other companies bought it from Mylan. I forget who owns EpiPen now, but the current owner is very far removed from the original researchers who made that drug.
zzleeper 8y ago
That's not how it works. You invest if it's worth investing, not if you just have the money laying around. Paying a few billion dollars to a big pharma company is not going to make them invest more in research. They will instead pay the money out as dividends. The goal of patents is to create incentives for future research, but if you change the rules by increasing the extent of EpiPen patents after the drug was created, where is the incentive?
- dragontamer 8y ago
  > Paying a few billion dollars to a big pharma company is not going to make them invest more in research. They will instead pay the money out as dividends. This is a misconception. No investor wants their money back. Investors want a promise of MORE money back in the future. If investors wanted their money back immediately, they wouldn't have bought stock in the first place! The vast majority of investors prefer (ex: Tesla) a company to spend all their money asap on infrastructure, research, development, etc. etc. Dividends are a last resort, only to be used if a company doesn't know what to do with its cash. Once a company starts paying dividends, it means that it has run out of ideas for how to invest into the future. Besides: its more tax efficient to grow the stock price rather than to pay the profits back in cash. --------- Even a big company will want to at least appear that it is growing even bigger, through R&D funds and what-not. If you start to give out a lot of dividends, investors will probably take it as a bad sign and flee.