Pharmaceutical company buys drug used to treat life-threatening infections; raises price from $13.50 - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Snowmew;48732065]Textbook monopolization with inelastic demand. They found that $750 was the optimal price to make a profit on since people are going to buy it to live and people who can't afford it will just die, but who cares? That's where they make the most money. This is really just econ 101 stuff. No surprise.[/QUOTE] How come there's no other manufacturers?

Oh yeah it should be mentioned that T. Gondii can cause a host of other shit symptoms like eye problems, seizures, flu like symptoms and co-ordination problems. It's also infects ~50% of the worlds population too. Fun. It has also been linked to increase incidences of mental illnesses (OCD, Schizophrenia, Bipolar etc), changes in personality. It's also has this really interesting thing which parasites do where it forms cysts in not only muscle tissue, but also in nerve tissue, brain tissue. I think it also forms large amounts of cysts in the liver but i might be misremembering and getting it confused with tapeworm cysts.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48732224]How come there's no other manufacturers?[/QUOTE] Patents?

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48732224]How come there's no other manufacturers?[/QUOTE] Prior to this, no one really needed to make a generic version since it was already really cheap, well, no one wanted too because the profit margins were low. This will probably change very quickly since the patents have expired years ago. My guess is this dickhead will enjoy his fucking blood money for 2 or 3 years before another pharma company pushes through a generic version through the FDA, and he'll still continue making money after bribing doctors to prescribe the shit to patients who don't know better.

Medical shit generally is scummy as fuck. My father lost his legs recently and the prices for wheelchairs, medical accessories and even prosthetic are ridiculously blown up. I'm not one for much governmental regulation concerning the market, but this stuff definitely should be regulated very carefully. It's at the point where my father considers making his own chair. Not that we can't afford it, but my father is pretty much a genius regarding any techy things and he could make better wheelchairs than the top ones with a fraction of the cost.

[QUOTE=Shibbey;48732257]Patents?[/QUOTE] I'd have assumed so, but this is an ancient drug. I'm surprised that you'd be allowed to do this 62 years later.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;48732326]I'd have assumed so, but this is an ancient drug. I'm surprised that you'd be allowed to do this 62 years later.[/QUOTE] You can renew a patent, I'm pretty sure

The biggest problem is a hedge fund manager is able to buy the rights to a life saving drug. Medicine shouldn't be a business, that's fucked up.

[QUOTE=Shibbey;48732257]Patents?[/QUOTE] Patents for this drug expired decades ago. [QUOTE=Sobotnik;48732224]How come there's no other manufacturers?[/QUOTE] Well, it's going to be extremely hard now that this dirtbag has gotten his grubby hands on it now. Basically, his company holds almost exclusive rights to this drug and how it is distributed. In order to develop a generic out there, other companies would need to be able to test theirs against the current marketed brand drug... which would now be hard to come upon because he can basically refuse to provide samples to test with. As for producing a generic that would be chemically similar or the same without trials against the brand? I'm not sure, but there's probably some sort of law or ruling set by the FDA to make sure nothing is different from the brand, which they wouldn't be able to get their hands on.

They said the price hike was to further research for a better toxoplasmosis drug, but I don't believe that. A government or university lab could do that for practically free. They said they didn't want to price gouge the customers, but that's exactly what they did. They mad something that was less than $20 bucks and made it cost more than my entire paycheck. Just buying one weeks worth of pills would cost $5250 dollars.

[QUOTE=cqbcat;48732374]They said the price hike was to further research for a better toxoplasmosis drug, but I don't believe that. A government or university lab could do that for practically free. They said they didn't want to price gouge the customers, but that's exactly what they did. They mad something that was less than $20 bucks and made it cost more than my entire paycheck. Just buying one weeks worth of pills would cost $5250 dollars.[/QUOTE] It's almost a given that you shouldnt believe big pharma when they claim price increases fund more research. And it's also a given that they phrase their scummy actions in as innocuous a way as possible to make it look like they're doing the sick people whose lives they might be endangering a favor.

I feel like medicine should be entirely socialized, or at least, have all medicine publicly available have medicine funded by taxes To think that people should be allowed to capitalize on illness is pretty inane. Let the tax do its work to prevent this from happening.

shit makes me want to embrace doctrinary communism [editline]21st September 2015[/editline] oh of course Turing Pharma is a fucking start-up

[QUOTE=J!NX;48732405]I feel like medicine should be entirely socialized, or at least, have all medicine publicly available have medicine funded by taxes To think that people should be allowed to capitalize on illness is pretty inane. Let the tax do its work to prevent this from happening.[/QUOTE] Seriously, screw being seen as "un-American" at this point. Let's get this friggin' country to a point where things [i]work.[/i]

Wish I knew how this buying up trademarks worked; would be great to save products from fuckers like this.

How do people sleep at night after doing shit like this?

You know what? I have an idea. Let's allow them to raise the price 55 times over. Sure. No problem. They need it to develop new drugs, right? The catch, though, is that if they don't develop at least 55 new, effective, varying drugs in the next few years, we fine the shit out of them, taking all profits they gained from raising the price and giving it back to the people who bought their drugs. Hell, even if they only come up with 25. That'll give them [I]some[/I] leeway. 25 new, effective, different drugs.

We should kill the rich and use their meat to feed the poor

[QUOTE=Levithan;48732607]We should kill the rich and use their meat to feed the poor[/QUOTE] [img]https://marinasleeps.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/eat_the_rich.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=proch;48732303]Medical shit generally is scummy as fuck. My father lost his legs recently and the prices for wheelchairs, medical accessories and even prosthetic are ridiculously blown up. I'm not one for much governmental regulation concerning the market, but this stuff definitely should be regulated very carefully. It's at the point where my father considers making his own chair. Not that we can't afford it, but my father is pretty much a genius regarding any techy things and he could make better wheelchairs than the top ones with a fraction of the cost.[/QUOTE] Wonder if there's a market... Your father could be a success story, pulling himself up by his metaphorical bootstraps to sell an inexpensive, well-designed wheelchair to those who need it, inspired by his own personal struggle to find a good wheelchair. You know, an actually decent capitalist.

This guy should be shot. Just another example of United States of Greed. The paper cups you usually put ketchup in at McDonalds that nurses bring you pills in at the hospital show up on your medical bill. They're called Medication Transportation Systems and they're $20 a pop. The entire medical industry is a pseudo scam

I'm fine with selling shit like painkillers and viagra and whatever but anything that people need or they will [I]die[/I] shouldn't be sold as you are literally putting a price on someone's life at that point and that just isn't right [QUOTE=Levithan;48732607]We should kill the rich and use their meat to feed the poor[/QUOTE] [I]Wear their skiiiiiiiin[/I]

[QUOTE=Last or First;48732605]You know what? I have an idea. Let's allow them to raise the price 55 times over. Sure. No problem. They need it to develop new drugs, right? The catch, though, is that if they don't develop at least 55 new, effective, varying drugs in the next few years, we fine the shit out of them, taking all profits they gained from raising the price and giving it back to the people who bought their drugs. Hell, even if they only come up with 25. That'll give them [I]some[/I] leeway. 25 new, effective, different drugs.[/QUOTE] except it really isnt as simple as you make it out. First, some chemical compound has to be found that seems to be effective at targeting a certain disease. Then lab in vitro and in vivo tests have to be done to see whether it works as intended without mutating or killing normal cells or animals. Then three phases of clinical trials have to be performed to see if the drug won't harm human beings/has benefits that are acceptable in relation to the side effects it causes. And even then, it's still in the experimental stage to determine what sort of long term effects it might have, its interactions with other drugs, carcinogenic potential if any, and so forth. To put in perspective you're looking at several hundreds, or even thousands of molecules being thrown out at the beginning stage itself

Don't worry guis the market will regulate itself!

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;48732696]Don't worry guis the market will regulate itself![/QUOTE] Seriously, has that notion [i]ever[/i] worked? If there's something the past few decades have told us, it's that an unregulated market naturally tends to all the money gravitating towards a few snowballing entities. Zipf and all that.

[QUOTE=J!NX;48732405]I feel like medicine should be entirely socialized, or at least, have all medicine publicly available have medicine funded by taxes To think that people should be allowed to capitalize on illness is pretty inane. Let the tax do its work to prevent this from happening.[/QUOTE] A very large proportion is already publicly funded, it largely seems to be a massive case of socialised losses and privatised profits and that's before you even get into evergreening and other fucking sick profiteering bullshit. [img]http://i.imgur.com/iujOEPf.png[/img]

I'm legit for literally burning this pharmaceutical company to the ground with him inside it. This isn't some petty act of revenge or rage. Killing this scum would legit potentially save the lives of people.

[QUOTE=VinLAURiA;48732707]Seriously, has that notion [I]ever[/I] worked? If there's something the past few decades have told us, it's that an unregulated market naturally tends to all the money gravitating towards a few snowballing entities. Zipf and all that.[/QUOTE] The market can regulate itself in certain instances. When you have goods that are elastic and non-vital, processed foods for example, the market can actually achieve realistic prices because the competition drives the price down. Really, if another pharmaceutical company could come right out today and start producing this drug, then the market would balance itself. It wouldn't be able to stay at the obscene prices it's at because someone else would come by and undercut them. The market would stabilize at the lowest point of equilibrium. The problem is that we've had government intervention to protect "intellectual property", so only one company can produce this drug. There's no competition. It's a literal monopoly. So he can raise the price to whatever he wants, and nobody can do anything about it. The only solution is more government intervention, either relaxing restrictions on who can make the drug or instating a price ceiling at the lowest point of equilibrium. The free market is entirely capable of balancing itself [I]if it is in fact a free market. [/I] The problem is that the pharmaceutical industry isn't, it's a government-regulated oligopoly. And there are ways to make a free market structure work while encouraging quality goods to be produced, and conducting everything in fair and ethical ways. It just isn't as good for Big Pharma as it is under a government-controlled industry, because they wouldn't make as much money. Say, for instance, if we just had the government take control of all medical IP, and allowed any pharmaceutical company to produce any drug as long as they could meet quality guidelines. In that case, it's technically a free market system because anyone can produce anything and there are no restrictions on cost, but it functions properly and prices are regulated by pure economics because other manufacturers can undercut prices until they all hit the equilibrium cost. Granted, spherical cows and all that.

[QUOTE=Kljunas;48732588]How do people sleep at night after doing shit like this?[/QUOTE] In a more comfortable bed than you'll ever own.

Make medication free already.