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| Thread: Hedge funder buys rights to drug used by AIDS patients and raises price 5000% |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT» |
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted September 22, 2015 04:24 PM |
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Hedge funder buys rights to drug used by AIDS patients and raises price 5000%
"Hedge funder buys rights to drug used by AIDS patients and raises price from $13.50 to $750 per pill".
Link: 
Are you kidding me? I've lost faith in humanity. May he get AIDS, because what he just did simply has no excuse. Kipshasz, mind letting me use your shotgun just for a bit?
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 22, 2015 05:00 PM |
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He owns the rights so he has every right to set the price, even if it wasn't him that came up with the idea he had to have authorized it (assuming the article is genuine and not just some hoax). At the same time though he really shouldn't be surprised if his house gets firebombed.
It's one of the reasons why I'm in favour of a REAL monarchy, there really has to be some moderator in society that has common sense and can render real judgement for the betterment of the country and the people, politicians are laughably inapt at this. I phrased that wrong, politicians are not really inapt per se, it's a matter of priority. If they were to perform their duties with people's concerns at the heart of their aims they'd soon find that they have no funding and no real support. Being a man of the people simply doesn't offer any job security to a politician, the same way that airtime and an insane amount of funding would/does.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted September 22, 2015 05:28 PM |
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There is one effective word that describes this act: greed.
I don't care how much they want to research new diseases, an increase of 5000% in price is way too much. They could've just started it with a dollar or two higher, though even that is unfavorable.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 22, 2015 06:09 PM |
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I think I see what they were trying to do now, the pricing isn't there to cripple the everyday patients who are most likely insured anyway (the guy said they will not charge uninsured peeps), so this pricing is just to cash in on hospitals purchasing the medicine and other firms rather than individuals.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted September 22, 2015 06:13 PM |
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Maybe. But the hospitals will still handle this burden. With the price around $13 you could practically order them in large quantities. $750 is quite much for but one pill.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 06:29 PM |
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The part of this story that I haven't seen a good explanation for yet is why the drug's previous owner didn't do this.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Minion
Legendary Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 06:56 PM |
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mvassilev said:
The part of this story that I haven't seen a good explanation for yet is why the drug's previous owner didn't do this.
He wasn't a swine of a human being?
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"These friends probably started using condoms after having produced the most optimum amount of offsprings. Kudos to them for showing at least some restraint" - Tsar-ivor
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted September 22, 2015 07:02 PM |
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Tsar-Ivor said:
I think I see what they were trying to do now, the pricing isn't there to cripple the everyday patients who are most likely insured anyway (the guy said they will not charge uninsured peeps), so this pricing is just to cash in on hospitals purchasing the medicine and other firms rather than individuals.
Hmm, are you thinking this through? What do hospitals need it for? Where does this much higher cost end?
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 07:12 PM |
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from what I read he did it too.
Quote:
Only a few years ago, Daraprim cost only about $1 a tablet, but the drug’s price rose sharply after CorePharma acquired it.
a 1250% increase it seems. way too little apparently 
seriously, this isn't a hoax? lol at the justification, the money will be used for research... yeah, I bet the guy is obscenely rich, but hey, it's better to spend other people money, right?
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 07:31 PM |
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Minion said:
mvassilev said:
The part of this story that I haven't seen a good explanation for yet is why the drug's previous owner didn't do this.
He wasn't a swine of a human being?
Some companies care about PR, but pharmaceuticals usually don't.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted September 22, 2015 07:52 PM |
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This isn't a hoax. Even daily mail(which I trust btw) says so, and this article even contains an interview. Yep, this is all real stuff  Seriously though, a goddamn tablet of that medcine is worth more than... A lot of stuff! How do you expect people to buy a pill that has a mid-end PC price-tag? But then again, is there any other choice? I have to say, even though inhumane, what he did is clever. Australia counter-acted a surprise increase in the price of eggs by not buying them(nobody, like, NOBODY did), but that's because you could live without eggs. Medicine on the other hand... Without it, you live much shorter.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 08:05 PM |
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted September 22, 2015 08:11 PM |
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Herry said:
This isn't a hoax. Even daily mail(which I trust btw) says so, and this article even contains an interview. Yep, this is all real stuff Seriously though, a goddamn tablet of that medcine is worth more than... A lot of stuff! How do you expect people to buy a pill that has a mid-end PC price-tag? But then again, is there any other choice? I have to say, even though inhumane, what he did is clever. Australia counter-acted a surprise increase in the price of eggs by not buying them(nobody, like, NOBODY did), but that's because you could live without eggs. Medicine on the other hand... Without it, you live much shorter.
Clever is the middle name of demo(n)cracy.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 08:43 PM |
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This is one of the reasons I hate intellectual property and patents. They are an infringement of the free market that do not lead to increased social utility at all.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted September 22, 2015 08:44 PM |
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I don't speak that language. In English, please.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 08:48 PM |
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TD
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 09:38 PM |
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Must say news like these really make me hope the drug has/gets a cheap good copy from India for example or even in general has alternatives(which I doubt given they dared to put such price increase).
I didn't see any mention about people with insurance that was brought up. A lot of people don't have insurance. They also can't get the insurance after they get the virus because it's not profitable for insurance company. And even if hospitals were the ones who pick up the bill, who do you think ultimately gets to pay for it? City/County/government will pick up the tab which means people will pay it ultimately. That money will either be away from someplace else(infrastructure for example) or you will pay higher taxes which is directly away from the people. And even in case you do have insurance it will depend on your insurance coverage as to if you can get the pill, how much you have to pay yourself(if any) an then there is the insurance cost itself. Depending on how often the said pill need to be taken it's possible that you won't get anywhere near enough pills with your insurance meaning you will have to pay yourself for the missing part.
PS I have no idea how often this medicine needs to be taken, but imagine that you had to pay for example 2 pills per month yourself... I couldn't afford personally 1500$ extra monthly, could you? Seriously it's guys like this Shkreli that make basically good market/IP-systems seem bad.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 09:53 PM |
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assuming that this isn't some hoax, this guy and the guy who bought tons of cacao beans to single-handedly raise the price of chocolate(which is true), should be force-fed each other. preferably using red-hot pliers. no one should ever be able to get rich by screwing over so many other people. this is just another thing that people allow, that causes me to lose faith in both them, and the snows who made it happen. it's beyond adequate description.
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted September 22, 2015 10:03 PM |
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... What? Buying tons of beans to do just that is beyond sick. But I don't blame the medicine guy, the treatment for his super rare mental disease seems to be extremely expensive, so expensive that it'll be easier to just toss him into prison and let him rot there instead 
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 22, 2015 10:12 PM |
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Here's an explanation that sheds some light:Quote:
But in recent years, another strategy has emerged, and Retrophin/Turing are just the most dramatic examples of it. Entire companies have sprung up to take advantage of this sort of leverage – not by discovering their own drugs (too expensive, too risky!) but by buying up existing ones. And the most egregious examples have come in the generic sector. By various means, old generic compounds have ended up as protected species, and several companies have made it their business to take advantage of these situations to the maximum extent possible. The FDA grants market exclusivity to companies that are willing to take "grandfathered" compounds into compliance with their current regulatory framework, and that’s led to some ridiculous situations with drugs like colchicine and progesterone. (Perhaps the worst example is a company that’s using this technique to get ahold of a drug that’s currently being provided at no charge whatsoever). There are also loopholes that companies are trying to exploit when competitors try to prove generic equivalence: whatever it takes to keep competition away and get unlimited pricing power.
This isn't something I know a lot about, but according to my understanding, it seems that when the FDA changes its approval rules for drugs, a company can get a monopoly on a drug by making it comply to the new standards.
Still doesn't explain why the drug's old owner, GlaxoSmithKline, didn't do it first. Maybe Corribus can shed some light on this.
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Eccentric Opinion
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