4 ms·
No, it's not hard at all. You imprison the people making it cost that much for corruption. They are entitled to profit if you want to argue for that, they are
by ck2 12y ago
No, it's not hard at all. You imprison the people making it cost that much for corruption.
They are entitled to profit if you want to argue for that, they are not entitled to destroying society.
$80,000 for hepatits cure is only the start if you let them get away with this.
- fiatmoney 12y agoYou can always wait 20 years until the patent runs out. Or just grant them a shorter patent in the first place. Or subject patent protection, as opposed to trade secret protection (which I don't believe is even a practical option for drugs right now due to the FDA approval process), to certain public-interest pricing restrictions.
- refurb 12y agoYou raise a good point. Wonder drugs such as Lipitor are now in the public domain. You can go to Walmart and get a Lipitor Rx for $4/month. Millions of lives have been saved (and will continue to be saved) by drugs that are now in the public domain.
- nsxwolf 12y agoWith a Number Needed to Treat of 100, can Lipitor really be considered a "wonder drug"? A wonder for Pfizer's bank account maybe.
- refurb 12y agoFair point, but also consider the options we have in terms of reducing cardiovascular complications. Most of the other drugs don't work as well and have more severe side-effects. It may not stack up well against other drugs, but for CV disease, it's the best we've got for reducing CV risk.
- refurb 12y agoWait a second! The older therapies, which people happily paid $80K for (but only cured 50%) of the people were OK, but now this company creates a drug that cures 90%+ and it's corruption? I don't understand.
- hga 12y agoAnd if this is such a good idea, why shouldn't it have been done earlier? That would save us another tiresome discussion, for this drug would have never been developed.
- Igglyboo 12y agoHoly fucking shit is this ww2 era communist Russia? Yea the public good trumps all and I wish the US was more socialized but that is fucking insane. Some company funds R&D for a product with their own money and sells it at their own price and since we as a society deem it too high we throw them in jail? Yea we need reforms but acting like an extremist doesn't help.
- ck2 12y agoThere are laws to throw you in jail if you don't buy it from them at $80k and try to buy it from Canada, Mexico or India instead where they sell it for a fraction of the US price. There are even laws making it illegal for the government to try to negotiate the price for medicaid/medicare. So why not laws to protect the price? We can regulate the consumer side but not the manufacturer side of the price? Don't fall for the illusion that corporations are people and deserve freedom to price things however absurdly when there is a crisis.