D'bag, or Capitalist Hero?

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Christien

Research is the realm of universities.

They don't invent drugs. And they don't research how to make them and then gift that info to a pharma co.

A lot of the reason drugs cost so much to bring to market is gov't. regulations. But the gen. public never has a problem with that. They only care about the evil pharma cos. that make money on the drugs they steer through the process and then have to charge a lot of money to recoup their investment and move on to the next invention.

If you're willing to force people to work for free, don't be surprised when the product you get from them is worthless.

[sammyg2]

Lots of misinformation in this thread.
People who can't tell capitalism from a hole in the ground talking as if they were experts.
THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF CAPITALISM IS BALANCE!!!!!!!!!
Balance of supply and demand, cost vs. value.

Why do we allow one company to have a SHORT-TERM monopoly on a certain drug? To cover the cost of research and development which can be in the tens of millions.

What happens when that short-term expires? GENERIC competition which drives the price down significantly. It's typically 20 years. That's too long IMO.
If this drug is 62 years old, I would expect the patent to be expired and anyone could make it.


If there is really a demand for this drug, you can bet he will be under-cut big time and will either lower his price down to below what it was before, or go out of biddness.
THAT is capitalism.
In it's true form, without gubmint manipulation, it adjusts and corrects and fixes irregularities and fluxuations.
It is beautiful in it's perfection.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Lots of BS and misinformation in this thread.
People who can't tell capitalism from a hole in the ground talking as if were experts.
THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF CAPITALISM IS BALANCE!!!!!!!!!
Balance of supply and demand, cost vs. value.

Why do we allow one company to have a SHORT-TERM monopoly on a certain drug? To cover the cost of research and development which can be in the tens of millions.

What happens when that short-term expires? GENERIC competition which drives the price down significantly. It's typically 20 years.
If this drug is 62 years old, I would expect the patent to be expired and anyone could make it.


If there is really a demand for this drug, you can bet he will be under-cut big time and will either lower his price down to below what it was before, or go out of biddness.
THAT is capitalism.
In it's true form, without gubmint manipulation, it adjusts and corrects and fixes irregularities and fluxuations.
It is beautiful in it's perfection.

Haven't read up on this much, have you ?

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by berettafan

and this is why pure capitalism has no place in modern society.

Hate to tell you this KOMRADE, but your alternative has been tried many times in many places, and has never worked.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Lots of misinformation in this thread.
People who can't tell capitalism from a hole in the ground talking as if they were experts.
THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF CAPITALISM IS BALANCE!!!!!!!!!
Balance of supply and demand, cost vs. value.

Why do we allow one company to have a SHORT-TERM monopoly on a certain drug? To cover the cost of research and development which can be in the tens of millions.

You need to get up to speed on what this company is doing.

Capitalism itself has no goal, it's just a laissez faire approach to business (and I may have misspoken before by attributing a goal to capitalism). The goal of the capitalist is not balance, it is to eliminate competition. We have anti-trust laws to protect us from capitalists, and we need them.

[sammyg2]

The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product.



The four basic laws of supply and demand are:

1.If demand increases (demand curve shifts to the right) and supply remains unchanged, a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price.

2.If demand decreases (demand curve shifts to the left) and supply remains unchanged, a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price.

3.If demand remains unchanged and supply increases (supply curve shifts to the right), a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price.

4.If demand remains unchanged and supply decreases (supply curve shifts to the left), a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price.

If the demand remains unchanged and the price shoots way up (supply artificially withheld), the supply will drastically increase from other forms of competition in order to fill the void.

[wdfifteen]

Nice theory.
The problem is the world has too many eggheads with nice theories.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

You need to get up to speed on what this company is doing.

Capitalism itself has no goal, it's just a laissez faire approach to business (and I may have misspoken before by attributing a goal to capitalism). The goal of the capitalist is not balance, it is to eliminate competition. We have anti-trust laws to protect us from capitalists, and we need them.

laissez-faire aka free-market capitalism in it's pure form is ideal.

It is only when gubmints try to manipulate and regulate that is starts to stumble. that gubmint interference reduces free-market capitalism from adjusting and maintaining balance.
If the gubmint let other drug makers produce generics after a couple of years, that would reduce the opportunity to gouge. If the gubmint did not make the drug makers spend billions dealing with bureaucracy and red tape, that would reduce the cost to the consumer.




The capitalist system is designed to reach and maintain balance between supply and demand.
The goal of the CAPITALIST is to be profitable. To make money.
He does that by competing and providing either a better product at the same price, or the same product at a lower price.


Funny that when market manipulation is used to give Tesla a HUGE financial advantage over other car makers (to the tune of $35,000 per car sold), that seems to be perfectly A-OKAY.

[BeyGon]

The guy is backing off, changing his price, he must have had a thought.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

laissez-faire aka free-market capitalism in it's pure form is ideal. .

It's the precursor of oligarchy and monopoly.

Originally Posted by sammyg2

The capitalist system is designed to reach and maintain balance between supply and demand.

The capitalist system isn't designed by anyone. It is, as you said, a laissez-faire system of whatever happens, happens. What eventually happens is monopoly.

[DanielDudley]

This guy used one company's profits as his personal slush fund. He sold bad funds at another company, knowing that they were bad. He is bad news, and he is only doing this for his own craven interests.

You want to defend capitalism, that's fine, but this guy is not a good example of the system actually working. Nobody has to buy a Tesla. Doxycycline is the preferred antibiotic for treating Lyme Disease. A treatment used to cost 30.00. Now it costs 1800.00. Not for any reason but profit. Not very ethical, it is exploitation at its finest. The guy is smart, and figured out how to corner a market, but he is a walking blood clot.

He may finally have brought enough attention to himself that this will come back on him. I hope it hits him like a ton of bricks.

[Rick Lee]

The bad guy's personal ethics aside, he could be doing the world a favor by exposing the true market value of a drug that was so grossly underpriced that no one else wanted to bother with it.

If $750/tablet is reflective of the market, then he will certainly attract competition that now sees making a generic copy as a viable option. That will be good for everyone. If he left the price at $13/tablet and continued to lose money on it, they'd eventually stop making it and then no one would have it. The fact that its patent expired decades ago suggests no one else thinks it's worthwhile to copy at the $13/tablet price point.

Trashing his personal ethics and past financial dealings is for the intellectually lazy, who don't want to bother with economic reality.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by legion

You too, clearly, have no idea what capitalism is. Capitalism is many small producers (individuals or companies) making large volumes of products that are indistinguishable from producer to producer. This means the producer with the lowest price gets the most sales and the producer with the most efficient method of production has the highest profit...

+1 Let's get down to the bottom line: You are against GREED, not capitalism. They are automatically connected. When a person wants to create a successful business it isn't automatically greed. Otherwise everyone of us is greedy for wanting to have a profitable job or business.

Originally Posted by Christien

I don't agree with that, but I would definitely say that capitalism has no place in health care, period. Saving lives and improving health should never take the bottom line into consideration.

Talk about pie in the sky wishful thinking. Please step away from the utopia bong and come back to the real world.
Who do you think is going to fund all that medical research if there is no profit at the end of the discovery? The researchers who have the purest motives (in most cases) don't have the funds. There are a FEW altruistic folks who care about mankind but, there isn't enough funding from them alone to come up with the major advances in modern medicine we've seen in the last 3-4 decades. We need the drug companies looking for a profitable product to sell. Reality sucks but there it is.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

[Por_sha911]

here are a FEW altruistic folks

Salk was one of the few in the last 60 years.
Not enough to fund all the advances.

[Kraftwerk]

There is a special place in hell for Martin Shkreli. It might be hell on earth since he is trapped in his own personality. Super creepy persona:


Lawsuit: Scumbag Pill Price Gouger Stalked and Harassed Ex-Coworker's Entire Family

His interviews make my skin crawl, a sociopath, you wouldn't want him dating your sister.

"Trashing his personal ethics and past financial dealings is for the intellectually lazy, who don't want to bother with economic reality."

B.S.

The economic reality is that The profits are not going into research as stated. This was $1 a pill then the company was sold and it got pushed up to $13 per pill. Then THAT company got bought and it went up 5000% There is no room for 'reality' when there is THAT much greed. This is the kind of greed that ruins a person and kills innocent people who no longer afford access. This behavior will follow that poor sap wherever he goes.

[Kraftwerk]

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

If $750/tablet is reflective of the market, then he will certainly attract competition that now sees making a generic copy as a viable option. That will be good for everyone. If he left the price at $13/tablet and continued to lose money on it, they'd eventually stop making it and then no one would have it. The fact that its patent expired decades ago suggests no one else thinks it's worthwhile to copy at the $13/tablet price point.

In a market you buy what you want from any of a number of vendors at the best price you can get, or maybe you don't buy at all.
There is no market here. It's not a market if you are forced to buy or die. He has a monopoly on a life saving drug. Buyers have to pay the price or literally suffer and perhaps die. This is blackmail.
His behavior is reprehensible, but he is a capitalist hero.

[berettafan]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Hate to tell you this KOMRADE, but your alternative has been tried many times in many places, and has never worked.

it is what we have lived with here in the US for many years.

is that news to you?

[tadd]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

They don't invent drugs. And they don't research how to make them and then gift that info to a pharma co.

A lot of the reason drugs cost so much to bring to market is gov't. regulations. But the gen. public never has a problem with that. They only care about the evil pharma cos. that make money on the drugs they steer through the process and then have to charge a lot of money to recoup their investment and move on to the next invention.

If you're willing to force people to work for free, don't be surprised when the product you get from them is worthless.

Rick:
You are quite wrong on this one. When I was in grad school at Vanderbilt the folks across the way were doing the COX2 inhibitor studies. That was researched and developed to trials at a university.

Most Pharma only carries a drug the last mile (phase II/III clinical trials). One should also note that the role of government has been reduced in clinical trials to overseer. Pharma pays its way anymore.

I have two issues with Pharma as it exists:
1. Why is SO much money spent on sales reps and selling to Drs?
2. The industry has shifted from cure to band aid. Drugs like Lipitor or the proton pump inhibitors. Rather than target the feedback loop to regulate the issue like the body would, its about blocking a specific protein.

It does cost money to do trials...but you do know why, right? Its the whole reason the FDA exists. Somebody way back when sold tainted sulfa drugs along with folks selling drugs with no efficacy... Snake oil. People died. So society 'decided' that cavat emptor doesn't belong with medications. IMHO, you should be able to buy a drug and expect it to have a reasonable chance to work for you (everyone is different, so its not 100%) AND not have the drug kill you cause its not 'pure'. Hell, for some compounds the R stereoisomer is cure and the S is kill.

So I have to ask, should it be cavat emptor for drugs? We give tax incentives for a company to make orphan drugs. Sometimes that is not enough. Is it then ok for the government to make it so its available? Should drugs be pulled when an issue arises?

For the last one, it burns me that the COX2 stuff got pulled for a measly 1000 or so deaths given billion or so doses taken. It was a great drug. Hell, that many folks kill themselves from ibuprofen poisoning every year... Look at the idiots that pulled Thalymide. Awesome drug for Leprosy. Not so much for nausea when pregnant.