US pharmaceutical company defends 5,000% price increase

[ksen]

Apparently he's a self-trained biologist too.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/article...eli-the-biotech-short-seller-who-went-long#p1

 

[barbos]

Apparently he's a self-trained biologist too.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/article...eli-the-biotech-short-seller-who-went-long#p1

Yeah, just want to point out that this information is a bit dated, and he was fired and sued by the same people who were praising him in that article.

The guy is a complete sociopath and his only contribution to humanity would be if kills himself (preferably not in the head) and let his brain to be studied. My understanding is that in order to get him to kill himself he needs to be parted from his money, because the only thing which keeps sociopath alive is money and trolling poor people well, with said money.
Actually, they can study his brain while alive with MRI, he should do that at least.

 

[ksen]

Apparently he's a self-trained biologist too.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/article...eli-the-biotech-short-seller-who-went-long#p1

Yeah, just want to point out that this information is a bit dated, and he was fired and sued by the same people who were praising him in that article.

Has he stopped claiming to be a self-trained biologist? If not then that information is still good.

It's funny in a sad kind of way how gushing this article is about him though when it wasn't that long after that the Retrophin(sp?) shoes started dropping.

 

[barbos]

Yeah, just want to point out that this information is a bit dated, and he was fired and sued by the same people who were praising him in that article.

Has he stopped claiming to be a self-trained biologist? If not then that information is still good.

I am sorry, I heard "Self-trained blowhard" the first time.

 

[ksen]

apology accepted! :hug:

 

[barbos]

On a serious note, apparently sociopaths completely lack any empathy, I mean they literally have some chemical paths/wiring broken in their brain, and there is nothing one can do except let them be Hedge Fund managers or run concentration camps in WW2 Germany, well, they make good surgeons too

 

[coloradoatheist]

Has anybody calculated what should have been the price for this drug (since the company was price dumping) times the amount of usage and compared it to the current difference to find out if consumers gained or lost over time?

 

[ksen]

Has anybody calculated what should have been the price for this drug (since the company was price dumping)

Please define "price dumping" and explain how the previous manufacturer was doing it.

 

[Bomb#20]

It's not about cheap indian generics. India does not develop drugs, US does. So if you let Indian drugs in, developments will eventually stop.

Are you suggesting patent protection should last forever? Or are you suggesting there's a metaphysical difference between cheap generics from India and cheap generics from a non-drug-developing company in a drug-developing powerhouse like Europe?

 

[barbos]

It's not about cheap indian generics. India does not develop drugs, US does. So if you let Indian drugs in, developments will eventually stop.

Are you suggesting patent protection should last forever?

What gave you this impression?

Or are you suggesting there's a metaphysical difference between cheap generics from India and cheap generics from a non-drug-developing company in a drug-developing powerhouse like Europe?

I am suggesting that India strictly speaking steals intellectual property, that is, they don't develop drugs yet they produce them for internal use.

 

[lpetrich]

Meh, greedy and evil CEO is so dog-bites-man.

The man-bites-dog story here is the insufficiently greedy and evil CEO who was only charging $13.50.

dismal, here it is:

Salk campaigned for mandatory vaccination, claiming that public health should be considered a "moral commitment." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When asked who owned the patent to it, Salk said, "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

Source:  Jonas Salk
He was a biomedical researcher, not a business leader, however. Enjoy hating him for being a disgusting socialist, dismal.

 

[barbos]

dismal, here it is:

Salk campaigned for mandatory vaccination, claiming that public health should be considered a "moral commitment." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When asked who owned the patent to it, Salk said, "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

Source:  Jonas Salk
He was a biomedical researcher, not a business leader, however. Enjoy hating him for being a disgusting socialist, dismal.

To be fair Infectious diseases is a separate and special case.

 

[Bomb#20]

Actually I remarked as I did because I took your response, which had to have had something to do with the OP as being in support of what the guy did because the posts reading otherwise have been quite clear with their opposition.

I suppose I also assumed you weren't derailing the thread.

What I wrote was a perfectly appropriate response to the idiocy I was answering. If that idiocy was off-topic in this thread then it was that post's author who derailed the thread, not me, so take your complaints to ksen. Oh, wait. ksen is the Original Poster. If he wants to use his thread to talk about "free marketjism", who are we to overrule him?

Moreover, it's highly unlikely that ksen derailed his own thread. He starts a lot of threads, and they generally have far more point to them than "So-and-so is being a dick". If he didn't start this thread for the purpose of spreading the "Free markets suck" theme that so many of his other threads push, what exactly do you think his point was?

A free market is very resilient against this sort of abuse.

Which is why we have anti-monopoly laws and the FDA. Free market babes!!!

Hey, I wasn't arguing pharmaceuticals are well-suited to free markets, just that it's irrational to blame free markets for a guy hacking a vulnerability built into the regulatory system of the most non-free market in the country. A free market would of course have its own set of vulnerabilities.

 

[Bomb#20]

Are you suggesting patent protection should last forever?

What gave you this impression?

Um, the fact that you're proposing excluding them from competing with us at production of a drug whose patent expired forty years ago?

I am suggesting that India strictly speaking steals intellectual property, that is, they don't develop drugs yet they produce them for internal use.

 

[ksen]

"Free markets suck"

I agree. :fistbump:

 

[barbos]

What gave you this impression?

Um, the fact that you're proposing excluding them from competing with us at production of a drug whose patent expired forty years ago?

I don't think I am proposing that. I mentioned India in more general aspect of drug business.

I am suggesting that India strictly speaking steals intellectual property, that is, they don't develop drugs yet they produce them for internal use.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The real problem is exactly as you have identified - this stuff is so cheap to make, and so expensive to get set up and licensed to make, that the only way for it to be profitable is for it to be a monopoly. Which opens the door to assholes who decide that margins in the 100 - 200% range are not enough, and want to abuse their monopoly position, knowing that the patients cannot simply stop taking the drugs.

In such a situation, there are three choices - 1) Accept the extortion and pay the asshole whatever he demands; 2) Lower the regulatory hurdles until competition becomes viable, and let the market push the price down; or 3) Regulate the price as well as the manufacturing and supply process.

Option 1 is unacceptable for reasons which I hope are obvious. Option 2 opens up the prospect of poor quality and/or fake drugs finding their way to patients; so Option 3 is really the only workable solution - despite the horror that government price controls evoke in the free market evangelists.

The free market does not work in monopoly situations. Those of us who aren't fanatic libertarians recognize this.

This is one area where the free market simply cannot work - customers are not able to determine the quality of the product, because the difference between a tablet that will save your life and a tablet that will do nothing at all (or may even poison you) is only able to be determined by highly skilled people working in a well equipped laboratory. Free markets rely on the customers having at least some way to tell what the quality of the goods is; and with pharmaceuticals, this is really not possible. So some central trusted authority is needed to protect the customers from unscrupulous suppliers.

In an unregulated marketplace, only fake tablets can be sold - because the counterfeiters can always undercut the legitimate suppliers; and the customers have no way to spot the difference between a real product and a fake.

One thing that I think would help is to put tracking numbers on packaging. These are always scanned when a product changes hands and the information goes back to the company. Everything short of the final purchase by the customer is available on the website. The company knows who owns what, they will refuse any transfer where the seller doesn't match the seller of record of the doses in question. This would make it very hard to counterfeit at any level other than the pharmacy itself.

 

[ksen]

Oh, it's not the first time this dipshit has pulled something like this:

http://ir.retrophin.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193805-14-689&CIK=1438533

On April 3, 2014, Retrophin, Inc. (the “Registrant”) provided notice to the wholesaler of its Chenodal® product that effective immediately, the Registrant had increased the price of a package of 100 250mg tablets of Chenodal from $9,460 to $47,300.

So apparently Shkreli's business plan is to acquire as many orphan drugs with captive markets as possible and jack the price of the medicine through the roof.

eta: Chenodal is used to treat Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis

 

[barbos]

I t think monopoly regulations directly apply here. If patents were still valid that would have been problematic because patents are legal from of monopoly but now, there is no patent protection, Federal government should split his tiny business in half and auction the half of it and then watch the prices, if they go up too much then they should apply anti-cartel laws and throw his sociopathic ass to prison where it belongs. Actually I think federal government should simply take part in auction and buy the half, that will save federal government some money on keeping that POS in prison.

 

[Angry Floof]

That guy's getting eaten alive by the internets right now.