[Zagadka]

Trump says Big Pharma is ‘getting away with murder’

At his first press conference as president-elect, Donald Trump said that he would change the way the country bids on drugs to bring spending and prices down. He accused the industry of "getting away with murder."

"Pharma has a lot of lobbies, a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power. And there's very little bidding on drugs. We're the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet we don't bid properly," Trump said.

The comment dropped a bomb into the middle of the drug industry's major annual investor conference underway in San Francisco this week, sending pharmaceutical and biotech stocks plunging. The iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index was down 2.7 percent in mid-day trading.

AbbVie, a company that has repeatedly raised the list price of its blockbuster arthritis drug, Humira, was giving a presentation at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference when Trump called for new bidding procedures. Its stock price was down 2.6 percent in mid-day trading.

"What we fundamentally believe in is being able to bring innovative medicines to the marketplace that ultimately are not only beneficial to patients, but also, over the long term, are providing an economic benefit to the health care system," said Richard Gonzalez, chief executive of AbbVie said. "I don't have a crystal ball as to what changes the president has in mind."

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/article125881819.html

FFS, stop saying things I agree with, asshole

[Ter]

FFS, stop saying things I agree with, asshole

I have that same feeling.
It is one more argument to stop bickering and see what he will do in reality, not guessing in advance.

[Albert]

Oh my gosh, Trump is not an evil bastard who will destroy America, who would have thought.

Good for him, pharma CEOs should be hanged for what they had been doing. Where was Obama, Hillary, Bushes, McCain and Romney on all this?

Where is SO? Get out of your drunk stupor and comment on this.

[MistyTiger]

OMG! Can he just fire them all?

I too am interested in seeing his official actions on the matter. I will not believe it, till I see it!

[Kaiserschmarrn]

The comment dropped a bomb into the middle of the drug industry's major annual investor conference underway in San Francisco this week, sending pharmaceutical and biotech stocks plunging.

While I do feel a bit of Schadenfreude about the above quote, the reality is that the way we have set up and regulated medical research/the pharma industry has massively distorted incentives. In other words, Big Pharma is just doing what it's supposed to do and it's up to us to give it the right incentives and if that is not possible for governments to sufficiently supplement in that area. One of the most ridiculous recent cases I've come across is Roche's drug Rituxan which has had extremely promising results in MS for which it isn't reimbursed. Since Rituxan's patent is expiring soon, Roche has developed a new drug which is slightly different to Rituxan and funded a massive trial which, unsurprisingly, also had extremely good results. Obviously, they are trying to crowd out Rituxan, which will almost certainly get much cheaper in the future, with this new very expensive patented drug. That Roche has a rational incentive to do this, shows how skewed and wrong their incentives are. And that's not even getting into the lack of incentives for finding cures for diseases.

Anyway, does Trump tell it like it is? I guess sometimes he does.

[noemon]

I feel quite a lot of Schadenfreude, my perception has been that you have always stood on the side of deregulations for these big corporations Kaiser.

[Zagadka]

Oh my gosh, Trump is not an evil bastard who will destroy America, who would have thought.

No, he still is. He just happens to be right on at least one specific issue.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

I feel quite a lot of Schadenfreude, my perception has been that you have always stood on the side of deregulations for these big corporations Kaiser.

Not in the area of medical research. I don't know if this can be successfully set up in a way that removes the most destructive and expensive incentives as we experience them today, where pharma companies invent "new" drugs or incrementally change existing drugs to, for instance, only change the tolerance profile. There is very little risk in doing so and we are supposed to pay, among other things, for the risk that these companies assume in developing new drugs. I have also argued before that we give them hardly any incentive to develop cures and if they do then they can experience a backlash for the price tag that comes with it.

As far as I know, the theory was - a bit simplified - that as long as governments do basic research, pharma will take care of the rest and the only response to the ever increasing costs was to cap them or somewhat reduce them with government pressure, especially in single-payer systems. I find both approaches unsatisfactory.

If we can't create a model that removes the most outrageously wrong incentives, then governments have to step up with respect to research. Mind you, I'm not particularly happy how research funding by governments works today either, with hundreds of thousands of often either redundant and/or methodologically abominable studies being funded and with a skew towards a few high profile diseases which take up a disproportionate share.

[One Degree]

a skew towards a few high profile diseases which take up a disproportionate share.

You also have the argument about developing medicine for rare diseases that the companies have no hopes of making a profit from. This can be used to justify their other prices if you expect them to make those drugs. It is also a huge bargaining chip if they threaten to not make them because of government price controls. The public outcry will go against the government. It is not a simple issue.

[Igor Antunov]

That would be one of the easiest and quickest ways to bring healthcare costs down across the board; eliminate the pharma monopolists who are dug in as federal suppliers. Ignore them, ignore their bribes and buy from others.

[Hong Wu]

Diuretics in particular are over-priced.

[One Degree]

Diuretics in particular are over-priced.

You should see the price on some of the drugs just for nausea in cancer patients. Thousands of dollars per month. Our insurance denied the only one that worked for my wife, so I said fine we will find a way to pay for it, so I went to the pharmacy and asked them how much it would be. If I remember correctly it was $8,000 per month and this was 9 years ago.

[MistyTiger]

Antipsychotics are expensive as well. One pill costs a thousand dollars or so. I know someone who takes a cocktail of them daily. It is insane.

[Ter]

Anyone interested to know the real price of medicines should walk into a pharmacy in India, Bangladesh or Nepal. Even the imported medicines are sold at about 10% of the price they charge in Europe. Dynamic pricing...

[Stormsmith]

Or buy Cuban.

[Decky]

Drugs cost very little to manufacture, it's the research that costs money. Sending the army to seize he drugs factories and using the new nationalised drug department to pump out all existing drugs for state owned hospitals at cost is something that any first world nation could do tomorrow if there was the political will to do it.

[Igor Antunov]

They really don't cost that much to R&D either. Tens of millions perhaps over a couple of years, these are small specialized teams. Yet they do it with the expectation of billion dollar returns on investment. Fuck em. The actual researchers get <1% of the money. Extortionists on the upper rungs of the corporate structure get the rest-dat yummy $80 million annual bonus.

[colliric]

That would be one of the easiest and quickest ways to bring healthcare costs down across the board; eliminate the pharma monopolists who are dug in as federal suppliers. Ignore them, ignore their bribes and buy from others.

Yep.

Do Americans have the big discount chemist chains with their wide range of generic medicines like we have here?

Because the wider avalibility of "home brand" drugs have been proven to drive down the costs. Proven way to help eliminate cost and monopolies in most retail based industries.... Aldi ripped our local supermarket duopoly to shreds.

Most widely avalible name drugs here in Aus are offered with cheaper homebrand alternatives across the board at every chemist.

Done to help the Chemists profits over the drug suppliers profits.

[AFAIK]

@Kaiserschmarrn

Any suggestions for how you'd like to see things structured?

[Suntzu]

Anyone interested to know the real price of medicines should walk into a pharmacy in India, Bangladesh or Nepal. Even the imported medicines are sold at about 10% of the price they charge in Europe. Dynamic pricing...

Even Mexico and Canada!