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.

I'm sure every university hosts some level of clinical trials, because college students need the cash. When I was in college, there were ads everywhere to earn $1000 for getting injected with this or that bug while you stayed in quarantine and were observed for a few days. I'm not saying that's not useful research, but it's not the same thing as universities inventing the drugs on the taxpayers' dime and then pharma cos. charging an arm and a leg once they get a patent.

I have a buddy who's made gazillions on a few drugs he patented. He purposely based his company in Bethesda, MD, where he could (when it was still legal to do so) use NIH and FDA employees as consultants. His costs would have been a lot higher, if he'd had to hire people away as full-time employees. And keeping close to the pulse of the FDA also made things easier for him. That stuff is crazy expensive and the talent doesn't come cheap. That guy write 10 figure checks all the time for years before what he's working on brings in a dime.

D'bag. Obama's Affordable Healthcare Act at work, making us healthier and bringing cost down. This is a generic 30+ year old malaria drug not an HIV drug. It is used for HIV infected patients who contract secondary infections. Believe he has lowered the price after gaining a couple days of public exposure for his company.

I cant imagine how this has anything to do with the AHCA.


Completely free market capitalism would not allow the patent system to exist. However, innovation would stop. I work in R&D and we would quite literally lay off the whole organization if we could not protect our work through the patents.

This is like saying, the ultimate goal of communism is a despotic dictatorship.

There is a subtle difference between "Free Market" and "Capitalism".

Capitalism, is where the means of production, are controlled by the demands of the people who produce. It is not an unregulated free market system, it requires careful regulation, yet not regulation so intrusive as to defeat the system.

We have not had a capitalist society in the USA IMHO since the mid 1800's. It has been progressively broken in different ways by different administrations since then. As we enter a welfare state where the economy is supported by taxes levied, then production supported by government, it is no longer the producers that control the means of production, but rather, those with political connections. If we had a capitalist society, the government wouldn't be subsidizing the "big pharm" through paying the ever increasing prices of healthcare. A non capitalist system that we have grown into, also allows people to get rich off of continually selling cures/symptom masks, rather than solving cause(A much better solution). A capitalist system would be focusing on raising personal health, rather than having such a low health, there is a constant need for "cures".

$0.66 a tablet in the UK.

Someone calculated that the annual cost of this drug is $650K per patient at the $750 price. The guy backed off and will name a new price in the next few weeks. Somehow I think it will still be several thousand percent over what it was before he paid $55 million to snatch up the rights.

You are either mistaken or have a fundamental lack of understanding of what capitalism is.

Actually the Pharma company is responsible for all 4 phases. A university may do phase 1 studies as those are much smaller studies and are focused on dose ranging and tolerance rather than efficacy. But the cost of the NDA will be borne by the company. Currently the PDUFA filing fee is $2.1 million.

I don't think $650 k is realistic.

I read there are roughly 10,000 annual users.

Douchbag said it's a $5 M a year business.

That's, at current price, $500 per patient which at $13.50 per pill gets you roughly 35 pills.

I'm under the impression this is prescribed similar to an antibiotic where you take a course to knock back a bug. Not a Doc so I could be way off base there but that's my understanding.

I think what's happened is he just finished a $90 M series A raise, blew $55 M of it buying a drug with annual revenue of $5 M meaning best case scenario (if that's 100% pure profit which we know it's not) he's looking at an 11 year break even.

IMHO, it's as simple as Mr Douchbag's arrogance caused him to make a monumentally bad deal that he thought he could swing in his favor.

Put another way, he claims the product does not make enough profit, that may be true but it's only because he paid too much for it.

Capitalism is GREAT!!!
This a$$wad is a total Douche nozzle

Then I guess he was foolish to spend $55 million buying it.

Wow, this guy is turning out to be an ******* for the ages.

I sense his name will take on some new meaning.

http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/cli/memorandum/oca_memorandum_651104_2013_58.pdf

Additionally, years before anyone even heard of the Daraprim price hike, Shkreli found himself at the center of another controversy. In 2013 as the CEO of biopharmaceutical company Retrophin, Shkreli was engaged in a harassment suit against employee Timothy Pierotti who claimed, in a sworn affidavit to New York's State Supreme Court, that Shkreli and Retrophin hacked into his various online accounts and sent a letter to Pierotti's wife saying, "I hope to see you and your four children homeless and will do whatever I can to assure this."

not the first time. He did the same thing with a liver drug. This guy is not repentant at all and a bit cocky about it. He's a waste of skin. Jonas Salk is crying in his grave.

He even looks like a douche bag. It would be a real shame if he came down with some exotic life-threatening disease and the only medicine that would help him was DENIED!!!!!!



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1443060715.jpg

If God's universe allows one to be both an a$$wad AND a total Douche nozzle I'm sure this PoS dirtbag qualifies .

:d:d:d:d

I sure hope they can bleed him dry with legal fees and force him into some jail time AKA Martha Stewart.

Karma can be a beotch even in real time.