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$900.00 For a 30 day supply of pills!

The drug industry sounds pretty mind boggling. I remember this guy was in the news a few months back for raising the price of a pill used in AIDS treatment from $13.50 to $750 per pill:

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... anyway, OP, good luck, hope you get sorted soon...
 
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Total scumbag. That guy and others of his ilk ARE the problem. That's what we get when we allow what's been happening for years to continue and even get more lopsided. I'd like to expand on that, but it's probably against the rules as well as completely unnecessary. We all know.


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"“Let’s not fold to advocacy pressure in 2014,” Gilead executive Kevin Young wrote in an email cited in the report."


Again, more of the same.


I had a nasty staph infection a dozen years ago. One antibiotic nearly killed me; broken legs and ankles aren't supposed to land someone in the burn unit with his skin falling off. But I digress; the pill that worked was $300 per pill, 3 times a day, for almost six months. That there is some BS. Profiting off of near death.
 
Few companies would develop any new drugs if there were no profit to be made.

Are a lot of these medications over priced? In my opinion, yes, some of them are.

A selling price is not based on what you and I think is "fair," however, it is based on what the market will bear. So goes the world.

The mere fact that I cannot afford certain things in life does not mean there is an evil conspiracy against me. Materially, I am less fortunate than some, much more fortunate than many others. I don't hate someone for being either richer or poorer than I, and they owe me nothing, the exact same amount that I owe them.
 
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Few companies would develop any new drugs if there were no profit to be made.

Are a lot of these medications over priced? In my opinion, yes, some of them are.

A selling price is not based on what you and I think is "fair," however, it is based on what the market will bear. So goes the world.


That may be true to some extent, but it doesn't make it moral. I've got no problem with profits being made. The problem lies with how much profit is expected. The guy Shredder posted the photo of is not a scientist, nor a doctor, or anything to do with drugs. He's a hedge fund manager who bought the rights to one pill and jacked the price up a few hundred times it's original cost.

That's OK with you?
 
I had a nasty staph infection a dozen years ago. One antibiotic nearly killed me; broken legs and ankles aren't supposed to land someone in the burn unit with his skin falling off. But I digress; the pill that worked was $300 per pill, 3 times a day, for almost six months. That there is some BS. Profiting off of near death.

wow - i can't imagine what this must be like. my respect for getting through it.
 
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Few companies would develop any new drugs if there were no profit to be made.


Sorry, had to come back to this. That's exactly why there is a quest for a better boner pill as opposed to a cheaper pill for HIV and AIDS sufferers, as well as why there are so many Rx drug ads on American TV. Most people don't realize they have an affliction until a drug maker informs them of something to relieve it. The current trend is knee braces since the Rascal and Hoveround scandals were made public.

Our system is broken and the Rx pricing is a only part of it. and please folks, don't bring up _____care because it was more broken before that, but just barely.
 
That may be true to some extent, but it doesn't make it moral. I've got no problem with profits being made. The problem lies with how much profit is expected. The guy Shredder posted the photo of is not a scientist, nor a doctor, or anything to do with drugs. He's a hedge fund manager who bought the rights to one pill and jacked the price up a few hundred times it's original cost.

That's OK with you?
He took the pill from 13.50$ to 750$ per pill, and before that it was around 1.00$. And they are primarily meant for aids patients.
Then you look at how cheap these mediactions can be had outside the US and realize that they charge us more simply because they can... That's not alright.

And it doesn't help that that Martin Shkreli guy has the single most punchable face in existence. Real human slime.
 


I can't let this rest.

That greaseball. Ugh! To borrow a line from Rev Book, there's a special place in hell for guys like that. It's usually reserved for child molesters and people who talk in theaters.

It's guys like that that have prevented the good in people from being our prominent feature. Some kids grow up with the idea of wealth being an ideal and this is the type of D-bag they will want to be. Great. I can't croak soon enough.
 
anyone remember DENDREON?!!
a pharmaceutical company so greedy, their prostate cancer drug was un-affordable. as an early investor i watched them go from $3.00-$58.00 a share during the "New Drug Approval" process. after approval, treatment using their meds was absolutely cost prohibitive and not one insurance company would cover it.
the stock tanked almost overnight after the next few quarters of little to no sales! obviously, the Directors got out with billions, cumulatively. the company became a Pink Sheet penny stock full of "shell-shocked" bag holders hopeful some other big pharma will bid on the IT.
sad for EVERYONE outside of Dendreon!
 
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Few companies would develop any new drugs if there were no profit to be made.

Are a lot of these medications over priced? In my opinion, yes, some of them are.

A selling price is not based on what you and I think is "fair," however, it is based on what the market will bear. So goes the world.

The mere fact that I cannot afford certain things in life does not mean there is an evil conspiracy against me. Materially, I am less fortunate than some, much more fortunate than many others. I don't hate someone for being either richer or poorer than I, and they owe me nothing, the exact same amount that I owe them.
The price of the medications is only a part of the problem. The larger part is that they are creating medications to treat symptoms as opposed to finding cures or helping people to get healthy. They are investing in disease maintenance, and consciously doing that to make as much money as they possibly can. You can think there's nothing wrong with that, but I completely disagree. And if I weren't typing this out on my phone I'd dive a lot deeper into this.
 
The good news is there are usually existing affordable medications that will do the job just fine. Fast tracking people into the ( supposedly ) newest latest greatest is not just
the trend in pharmaceuticals, it's everything. Sad fact is though, health care is not elective. TV, Smartphones and Cars are. No, there is no conspiracy, just gross greed.
It is a shame if the drug is unique and your only choice, but that is seldom the case. There is much out there that is tried true and affordable.
The fact is as well that too many people will go for the gold option because "my insurance will cover it". As a result the whole thing just feeds on itself with the little guys holding the bag.
 
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"“Let’s not fold to advocacy pressure in 2014,” Gilead executive Kevin Young wrote in an email cited in the report."

My father was in the test program for what became Harvoni (he incurred no costs and was compensated as well). I remember during the course of the medication he mentioned that his doctor thought it was absurd this program would cost nearly $100,000 to be cured of Hep C. However- my father was cured within 12 weeks. When he started the program he had over 200,000 units of the Hep C virus per liter of blood. After one week of treatment that was down to 20,000 units. The next week there was no trace of Hep C in his system. We added how many years to his life? Will that be worth $100,000 to someone?

I agree the cost is absurd. But how much is life worth (in dollars) anyway? Just a honest question....
 

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