Of the more than 1,600 generic approved drugs, over SEVEN HUNDRED are not on the market!
43%. Not for sale. Just being sat on. Which means a lot of drugs have ZERO COMPETITION and nothing forcing them to lower prices through active competition. There are several reasons for this, but I suspect regardless of what is said that the biggie is to simply keep prices high as long as possible on the newer and patented drugs in order to make as much profit as possible.
Cynical much? As a matter of fact, yes.
Now, I can respect that it costs a tremendous amount of money to develop a drug, test it, and go through the approval process. And not all drugs survive testing or approval, or may have a flaw come through after approval that results in the drug being taken off the market (can you say 'thalidomide'?). So not only do profits have to recoup the costs of THAT drug, they have to recoup FAILED drug costs AND fund new development AND provide some profits.
But there's one flaw in this little scenario: a lot of this development work is being done through the National Institutes of Health and other Federal research programs, paid for by tax dollars of citizens of the USA. So their development costs are purely negligible: they're buying a license that's no where near the development costs that the government paid.
One example of some of the shenanigans pulled: asthma rescue inhalers, commonly known as albuterol inhalers. They were so utterly generic that if they weren't free, they were $5. Long out of patent, so anyone can make them, but they're not going to make a huge amount of profit on them.
WELL, WE CAN'T HAVE THAT! Our MBAs say we gotta make as much profit as possible for our shareholders! That's MBA School 101! So they go to the EPA and FDA and say 'Oh noes! Those nasty rescue inhalers are so old that they're using CFCs and destroying the ozone layer! What are the kittehs gonna do! No can haz burgers! But we haz NEW inhaler that haz NO Nasty CFCs! We just need to be granted a patent and exclusive licensing rights and a ban on the old inhalers, sign here please.'
And inhalers, which are critical for some people, are now $30. I have one in my pocket, one on my bedside table, and one in my computer bag. While I don't have the deadly severe form of asthma, it's kinda important for my continued normally reasonably good health.
Well, now we're seeing the ultimate expression. Buy the patent and licensing for the generic while you also hold a nigh identical drug, and just sit on the generic! Ensure that you cannot have a competitor.
Pretty damn slick, and hopefully they will be damned in their own personal hell hereafter.
With a little luck the next administration will do something about this shit.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/drug-companies-are-sitting-on-generics-43-of-recently-approved-arent-for-sale/
This entry was originally posted at https://thewayne.dreamwidth.org/1116308.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Cynical much? As a matter of fact, yes.
Now, I can respect that it costs a tremendous amount of money to develop a drug, test it, and go through the approval process. And not all drugs survive testing or approval, or may have a flaw come through after approval that results in the drug being taken off the market (can you say 'thalidomide'?). So not only do profits have to recoup the costs of THAT drug, they have to recoup FAILED drug costs AND fund new development AND provide some profits.
But there's one flaw in this little scenario: a lot of this development work is being done through the National Institutes of Health and other Federal research programs, paid for by tax dollars of citizens of the USA. So their development costs are purely negligible: they're buying a license that's no where near the development costs that the government paid.
One example of some of the shenanigans pulled: asthma rescue inhalers, commonly known as albuterol inhalers. They were so utterly generic that if they weren't free, they were $5. Long out of patent, so anyone can make them, but they're not going to make a huge amount of profit on them.
WELL, WE CAN'T HAVE THAT! Our MBAs say we gotta make as much profit as possible for our shareholders! That's MBA School 101! So they go to the EPA and FDA and say 'Oh noes! Those nasty rescue inhalers are so old that they're using CFCs and destroying the ozone layer! What are the kittehs gonna do! No can haz burgers! But we haz NEW inhaler that haz NO Nasty CFCs! We just need to be granted a patent and exclusive licensing rights and a ban on the old inhalers, sign here please.'
And inhalers, which are critical for some people, are now $30. I have one in my pocket, one on my bedside table, and one in my computer bag. While I don't have the deadly severe form of asthma, it's kinda important for my continued normally reasonably good health.
Well, now we're seeing the ultimate expression. Buy the patent and licensing for the generic while you also hold a nigh identical drug, and just sit on the generic! Ensure that you cannot have a competitor.
Pretty damn slick, and hopefully they will be damned in their own personal hell hereafter.
With a little luck the next administration will do something about this shit.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/drug-companies-are-sitting-on-generics-43-of-recently-approved-arent-for-sale/
This entry was originally posted at https://thewayne.dreamwidth.org/1116308.html. Please comment there using OpenID.