Pharma CEO jacks drug price up 400%, citing "moral requirement to make money" - Sensationalist Headlines

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/pharma-ceo-jacks-drug-price-400-citing-moral-requirement-to-make-money/ Nirmal Mulye, CEO of the small Missouri-based drug company Nostrum Laboratories, raised the price of bottle of nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 last month. The drug is a decades-old antibiotic used to treat urinary-tract infections caused by Escherichia coli and certain other Gram-negative bacteria. The World Health Organization lists nitrofurantoin as an essential medicine. In an interview with the FT, Mulye went on to say it was also a “moral requirement” to “sell the product for the highest price,” and he explained that he was in “this business to make money.” I agree with Martin Shkreli that when he raised the price of his drug he was within his rights because he had to reward his shareholders... If he's the only one selling it then he can make as much money as he can... We have to make money when we can. The price of iPhones goes up, the price of cars goes up, hotel rooms are very expensive. Mulye also noted that rival pharmaceutical company Casper Pharma raised the price of its brand-name version of nitrofurantoin, called Furadantin. Casper hiked the price by 182 percent over three years—between 2015 and 2018—bringing a bottle’s list price to $2,800. Nostrum’s version is “still a saving regardless of whether it is a big one or not,” Mulye pointed out.

Oh fuck off you money grubbing twat

Hit this prick with a cruise missiles.

Sounds like we have a moral requirement to lock this twat in a cage and throw away the key.

Lol, jokes on this fuckwit, it's out of patent and a competitor is gong to under cut him. Looking it up, the average cost for a course of treatment for this drug is US$18.

I'm really curious if there is anyway at all this guy can actually make money from doing this garbage. Does anyone know if there are some hospitals or pharmacies that have a contract with him or something like that? or is this all just a publicity stunt to show how much he loves money?

Misquotations of Adam Smith and Supreme Court cases have caused more harm in this world than anything else. CEOs do not have a moral imperarive to maximize profits, companies do not have a moral imperative to maximize profits, shareholders do not have a right to a return on their investment, we just allow all this behavior to happen because they don't at first glance appear to hurt society without seeing the marginalized people that are injured by these behaviors. Corporations should not have the same rights as people if they act as a detriment to society.

It takes a while for a generic to get approved by the FDA if their isn't one already approved. I'm suffering from the price-hike scam as well while a generic is in the works.

I'd assume that out there somewhere a purchasing manager was swayed into a long term contract for a Caribbean holiday.

no they won't because they have piles of cash to buy out and shut down any competition since they make more money. these drugs are commodities that should have their prices minimalized as much as possible but until they are seen as such these shitty practices will continue

I think he is fundamentally correct in terms of what the corporation should be doing - they are institutions made to generate as much profit for stakeholders as possible. Now, is that wrong when applied to providing healthcare? I'd say yes, that it is morally repugnant to chase endless profits with life on the line. But unless the game changes most players will optimize their strategies to best meet the win conditions: the most cash no matter the cost.

Want to prove that dude instead of talking out of your ass? https://data.medicaid.gov/Drug-Pricing-and-Payment/NADAC-as-of-2018-06-13/kywb-5uhe Look up nitrofurantoin and see it's less than US$1 per pill.

The drug in question is the liquid suspension, which is a much less competitive market than the tablet form. As far as I can tell, there are only three other companies with recent FDA approval to market nitrofurantoin liquid suspension: Amneal Pharms, Novel Labs Inc., and Actavis Mid Atlantic. Of these, only Amneal Pharms lists it on their online catalog. It is generally harder to manufacture liquid suspensions which explains why less companies are willing to go to the trouble of getting approval from FDA. This is a plain and simple case of price gouging: he's trying to see what he can get away with. Drug pricing in the US is as opaque as it gets, and the list price given by the drug manufacturer goes through insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and pharmacies themselves, before finally reaching the patient. It's hard to tell what patients actually end up paying when outrageous price increases like these get announced, but the very idea that drug companies are allowed to abuse the government-sanctioned monopoly they enjoy leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

If hell exists everybody involved in the pharmaceutical and health insurance industry is going there

ya for this drug, but its not wrong, generic drug makers make pennies per pill brand names make hundreds even thousands a pill, they make the money and they can buy other orphaned or generic drugs much like this guy did.

Why do they always have to be such absolute cunts about it, too?

Did this guy forget what happened to Martin Shkreli?

Absolutely nothing, jack all happened to him realted to the drug pricing.

If shareholders didn't have a gaurantee that companies would act im profitable ways, they wouldn't invest. Corporations quite literally exist for the purpose of maximizing profit. The problem here isn't with corporations being corporations. The problem is with the fact that medicine is an inelastic market that doesn't follow typical market laws, compounded with the fact that they've formed cartels with insurance companies (something they should honestly be prosecuted for at this point) compounded further by lobbying. The ultimate solution to this is to prevent these companies from affecting government and to hold them accountable to the rule of law that already exists.

Go free market!

#freemarket If he has a moral imperative to make money, then the people affected by this have a moral imperative to drag his whole executive board out into the streets and execute them by firing squad.

The market isn't functioning at all with pharma, not in the US.

pharmaceuticals are about as far from a free market as you can get lmfao get your heads out of your asses

Countries in which people can't afford these medications have a moral imperative to steal them via industrial espionage and socialise them.

Shkreli at least had the excuses "we need to recoup development costs" and "we're only scamming insurance companies." This guy doesn't even bother

there's a moral requirement to throw scum like this into the fucking ocean

What, becoming an internet celebrity with a cult following of whiteknights?

there are plenty of reasons why a company might not maximize profit, union contracts, investment, restructuring long term reorientation of businesses and company goals for just a few. shareholders for that matter aren't always greed motivated either, lots of investors invest in companies with the hope they may bring about some long off future goal, which isn't maximizing profit in the slightest.

This. You guys are calling for the execution of a CEO for quadrupling the price of a drug. Jesus fuckin' Christ, FP. There's more to the pharmaceutical industry than "Oh, they increased the price, they must all be corporate devils who drink the tears of poor people".

If you read the article he outright cites and agrees with Shkreli's decision, and is basically replicating it on purpose for his own attempt at 5 minutes of fame and theoretical profit.