A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

[seekerz]

My question is why is there only one manufacturer of this drug? How did this come to be? Is it a rarely used drug, without much profit (if any)? Are there no generics?

And I’d be willing to bet a few dollars that this is happening because of some loophole that will be exploited in Obamacare…

It’s a drug that’s rarely used in the US - a very old drug. The company that makes it was recently bought by a former hedge fund manager is what I’ve read. Patent has expired, but I think any company considering making it would have to get their hands on the current product.

IMO, it’s nothing but making a profit from human suffering to increase the price of a drug that much. Unbridled capitalism at it’s finest guys. And if that makes me “anti-capitalist”, then I’ll be honored to assume this badge being bandied around with increasing frequency as the Pope gets ready to come stateside. We are here to serve Christ and our neighbors - NOT any man-made system or ideology. If any system doesn’t work at some level, it’s not heresy to speak out against it.

 

[Thorolfr]

IMO, it’s nothing but making a profit from human suffering to increase the price of a drug that much. Unbridled capitalism at it’s finest guys. And if that makes me “anti-capitalist”, then I’ll be honored to assume this badge being bandied around with increasing frequency as the Pope gets ready to come stateside. We are here to serve Christ and our neighbors - NOT any man-made system or ideology. If any system doesn’t work at some level, it’s not heresy to speak out against it.

 

[JonNC]

It’s a drug that’s rarely used in the US - a very old drug. The company that makes it was recently bought by a former hedge fund manager is what I’ve read. Patent has expired, but I think any company considering making it would have to get their hands on the current product.

IMO, it’s nothing but making a profit from human suffering to increase the price of a drug that much. Unbridled capitalism at it’s finest guys. And if that makes me “anti-capitalist”, then I’ll be honored to assume this badge being bandied around with increasing frequency as the Pope gets ready to come stateside. We are here to serve Christ and our neighbors - NOT any man-made system or ideology. If any system doesn’t work at some level, it’s not heresy to speak out against it.

Absolutely agree. And it tires me to hear progressives say that only government can care for the poor, only government can handle health care. If we truly want to care for the poor, it seems to me that a string return to the Catholic Principle of Subsidiarity is in order.
I would trust the Catholic Church with healthcare and helping the poor. The government? Not in the least. Care for the poor is a Church function.

This greedy guy who raised drug prices isn’t half as hideous or dangerous as what the VA has done in recent years. I know. It has touched my family.

Jon

 

[seekerz]

Absolutely agree. And it tires me to hear progressives say that only government can care for the poor, only government can handle health care. If we truly want to care for the poor, it seems to me that a string return to the Catholic Principle of Subsidiarity is in order.
I would trust the Catholic Church with healthcare and helping the poor. The government? Not in the least. Care for the poor is a Church function.

This greedy guy who raised drug prices isn’t half as hideous or dangerous as what the VA has done in recent years. I know. It has touched my family.

Jon

What is more important: who helps the poor or that they be helped?

A lot of this debate about Church vs government just sounds like fights I used to have with my sister about who Mom assigned to wash and whom to dry and put away…

The command is to help the poor. The criticism of that failure by prophets of old has been collective and individual directed to leaders and the people of the OT.

For that matter, the Church didn’t even exist when Scripture began to command that the poor be helped. I’m pretty sure the saints who became monarchs and rulers did not just give from their personal wealth.

So I have to ask: where or where did we get that “who helps” is even of comparable importance to “are the poor helped”?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s a drug that’s rarely used in the US - a very old drug. The company that makes it was recently bought by a former hedge fund manager is what I’ve read. Patent has expired, but I think any company considering making it would have to get their hands on the current product.

IMO, it’s nothing but making a profit from human suffering to increase the price of a drug that much. Unbridled capitalism at it’s finest guys. And if that makes me “anti-capitalist”, then I’ll be honored to assume this badge being bandied around with increasing frequency as the Pope gets ready to come stateside. We are here to serve Christ and our neighbors - NOT any man-made system or ideology. If any system doesn’t work at some level, it’s not heresy to speak out against it.

As near as I can tell, nobody is prevented from making this product, and it’s not a complicated product. Also, it appears not to be of much use any more for its “on label” uses because the bugs it is supposed to attack have become resistant. If so, then it would no longer be the “standard of care” for those organisms. It’s possible there is an “off-label” use that’s more important than that for which it was designed and for which it was used for years.

Given that anyone can manufacture it, the question still remains whether this is a “short term gouge” of an opportunistic sort, or whether perhaps the production line has been narrowed to a tiny and inefficient production level due to lack of demand, and that perhaps Turing took it on only as part the requirements of a larger purchase.

One suspects there’s more to this story, but we don’t know what it is.

 

[JonNC]

=seekerz;13299426]What is more important: who helps the poor or that they be helped?

Both are, for different reasons. The government does a terrible job of helping the poor. The bureaucracy has a vested interest in maintaining it, as do politicians who promise government largess in order to remain in power. And the federal government has no enumerated power to do it.
The Church, OTOH, has the command of God. Church Church helps out of love, the government out of greed and power.

A lot of this debate about Church vs government just sounds like fights I used to have with my sister about who Mom assigned to wash and whom to dry and put away…

Only if one of you got paid to clean, and benefited by making the room dirtier, while the other cleaned out of love.

What it comes down to is simple: A society that is free but not generous will soon lose its freedom. A society that is required to be generous is not free in the first place.

Jon

 

[Suudy]

What is more important: who helps the poor or that they be helped?

This is dangerously close to saying the ends justify the means.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

This is dangerously close to saying the ends justify the means.

Subsidiarity doesn’t mean that the government never has a role to play. Sometimes it is the least common denominator with the resources and willingness to help the poor. The government is only filling the gap created by insufficient private charity.

 

[stinkcat_14]

This is dangerously close to saying the ends justify the means.

The problem in this case is that there are two morally licit alternatives, albeit with different levels of prudence.

You could have government provide prescription drug coverage through its national health insurance like Canada does. One advantage that Canada has is that because it is the sole buyer, it can negotiate a better price. On the other hand, national health insurance has downsides, but those are mainly of a practical nature not a moral nature.

You could have a private market and use private charity to make sure that the poor get the drugs they need. The downside with this is that there is no guarantee that the poor will get the drugs they need.

 

[Theo520]

Good commentary, I googled and found >40 Indian companies make the generic component.

Perhaps nothing else has yet passed the FDA gauntlet, thus creating a monopoly within the US.

There has to be more to this story. Daraprim would have long been out of patent, so anybody can manufacture it if they want to. Apparently there is a lot of resistance to it developed over the years.

It’s certainly possible that Turing found a cheaply-produced drug that nobody but one maker makes because it’s little used, and figured they could gouge until other manufacturers came on line with it. It’s possible, too, that they shut down most of the production if it was no longer in significant demand. It could be sort of like trying to buy a brand-new Model T today. If nobody makes them but a small group of replica-makers, it would sell for a lot more than the original Model T did or that a widely-manufactured Model T would.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Good commentary, I googled and found >40 Indian companies make the generic component.

Perhaps nothing else has yet passed the FDA gauntlet, thus creating a monopoly within the US.

Sometimes doctors prescribe the drugs they know and have prescribed for years. Not long ago, I ran across a prescription drug for glaucoma that is really expensive. But it’s simply a combination of two very inexpensive drugs that can be used together if prescribed. So the Indian product might actually be available. Canadian “mail order” drugs are very commonly made in some third world country, and particularly India.

But I still think there’s more to this story. This drug seems to have outlived its usefulness for its originally intended purposes. But possibly it has a beneficial “off label” use that has been more recently discovered.

 

[bibcat]

What liberty? This is business as usual for the pharmaceutical industry, which holds lives at ransom. Government intervention is necessary. And yes, there is an element of corporatism since only Walgreens is allowed to dispense it to patients now.

Bingo!

 

[Theo520]

You are confusing the 7 deadly sins with Capitalism.

Is your solution to lecture the company on how to be moral, and expect them to comply? Please record and share the bible study class you give them

Personally, I’ll recommend we contain their greed through capitalism, by enabling competition and ending their US monopoly. I hope you are aware that such monopolies are the antithesis of capitalism

IMO, it’s nothing but making a profit from human suffering to increase the price of a drug that much. Unbridled capitalism at it’s finest guys. And if that makes me “anti-capitalist”, then I’ll be honored to assume this badge being bandied around with increasing frequency as the Pope gets ready to come stateside. We are here to serve Christ and our neighbors - NOT any man-made system or ideology. If any system doesn’t work at some level, it’s not heresy to speak out against it.

 

[Suudy]

Subsidiarity doesn’t mean that the government never has a role to play. Sometimes it is the least common denominator with the resources and willingness to help the poor. The government is only filling the gap created by insufficient private charity.

Is that what I said? Is that what I’ve ever said here on CAF?

Of course government has a role. But, as JPII pointed out in Centisumus Annus, the government is not the primary source, the government may only perform as a substitute, and government intervention must be as brief as possible.

Now, specifically back to the comment I quoted:

What is more important: who helps the poor or that they be helped?

This sounds very much to me that the ends (helping the poor) is much more important than the means (private vs government). I didn’t say it was a case of the ends justifying the means, only that it was getting dangerously close. That is, that statement alone implies that it doesn’t matter how the poor are helped, only that they are helped.

 

[Suudy]

The problem in this case is that there are two morally licit alternatives, albeit with different levels of prudence.

No disagreement here.

You could have government provide prescription drug coverage through its national health insurance like Canada does. One advantage that Canada has is that because it is the sole buyer, it can negotiate a better price. On the other hand, national health insurance has downsides, but those are mainly of a practical nature not a moral nature.

My disagreement here is the government being the sole buyer. The proper role is for private organizations to do this. If that means a very large or a few very large private organizations doing so, perhaps. The state has a responsibility to strengthen private groups to do this. My complaint is the state completely taking over those role properly seated in the private individuals or organizations (perhaps through a temporary substitute function), and then refusing to do anything to effectively end its own involvement.

You could have a private market and use private charity to make sure that the poor get the drugs they need. The downside with this is that there is no guarantee that the poor will get the drugs they need.

There are no guarantees ever. If the government is the only source of a necessary drug, there is no more guarantee of sufficient supply or timeliness of delivery than through private organizations. The only power the state has that private organizations do not have is the kinds of threats we’ve already seen voiced on this thread (e.g. " The government should seize the patent and make it available to any company that wishes to produce it. The hedgefund manager should be jailed for extortion and murder if someone dies because of his greed.").

But for some, the means (seizing private property and jailing individuals) are acceptable.

 

[silver_moon]

Further down in the same news article. The founder and chief executive of Turing, which raised the drug’s price, has gotten into trouble before.

This is not the first time the 32-year-old Mr. Shkreli, who has a reputation for both brilliance and brashness, has been the center of controversy. He started MSMB Capital, a hedge fund company, in his 20s and drew attention for urging the Food and Drug Administration not to approve certain drugs made by companies whose stock he was shorting.

In 2011, Mr. Shkreli started Retrophin, which also acquired old neglected drugs and sharply raised their prices. Retrophin’s board fired Mr. Shkreli a year ago. Last month, it filed a complaint in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accusing him of using Retrophin as a personal piggy bank to pay back angry investors in his hedge fund.

nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html?_r=1

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Further down in the same news article. The founder and chief executive of Turing, which raised the drug’s price, has gotten into trouble before.

nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html?_r=1

And people say monsters aren’t real. :ehh:

 

[silver_moon]

And people say monsters aren’t real. :ehh:

. At least retrophin’s board fired him and pursued a complaint. It would have been better if they didn’t do the same price increase though.

 

[graciew]

And people say monsters aren’t real. :ehh:

I can understand that .
When one has a dear.relative who needs a medicine that is either not found or extremely expensive ,no matter the " isms" one gets really desperate.
And yes , Emperor , a few looked like real " monsters " ; to me. But let me tell you ,there are angels as well ; one we.really needed and was not to be found ,somebody donated it to us.
God is way above " isms" when one needs a hand.

 

[seekerz]

Both are, for different reasons. The government does a terrible job of helping the poor. The bureaucracy has a vested interest in maintaining it, as do politicians who promise government largess in order to remain in power. And the federal government has no enumerated power to do it.
The Church, OTOH, has the command of God. Church Church helps out of love, the government out of greed and power.

Only if one of you got paid to clean, and benefited by making the room dirtier, while the other cleaned out of love.

What it comes down to is simple: A society that is free but not generous will soon lose its freedom. A society that is required to be generous is not free in the first place.

Jon

I was asking which one is more important. IMO, it’s a practical - not a philosophical question. Who does what better is a matter of opinion, in my experience. There isn’t a single flaw of government assistance programs that I haven’t seen repeated in charities.

Government wastes - charities waste. Government is plagued by corruption - we also have multiple cases of charities paying millions to their “CEO’s” and giving away expiring junk to the people they’re supposed to be helping. Human beings are human beings and “better” is a matter of what glasses one chooses to wear.

The more important thing is that we at least TRY. Again, God commanded help to the poor, before Christianity was born - so I suspect He is not just speaking to the Church but to all humanity.

Perhaps you might enlighten us on where the Church teaches that helping the poor is a role exclusive to it? Because unlike you, I hardly ever hear that “only government” can help the poor - but rather “helping the poor is the Church’s job, not government’s”. So please enlighten us: where does the Church appropriate that role exclusively?