Private healthcare is so efficient

[grumbler]

It was profitable at 1$ and 13$, they still made it. It just wasn't as profitable as at 7000$ (obviously).

JM

Actually, it wasn't profitable at $1 (because that wouldn't even cover production costs, let alone distribution costs) and wasn't at $13 either, because distribution costs for so few prescriptions was so high. At $7000, as you say, it would obviously be profitable, but not as profitable as at $1 million and even that is less profitable than at $10 million. Etc.

We can all make up numbers just as easily as you. We may not all sound as silly as you do with the words you attach to the numbers (like claiming that products are "profitable" when production costs exceed retail sales price), but our numbers have as many digits as we please, just like yours.

[giblets]

Can you provide a source that says they were losing money on the drug at the lower prices?

[grumbler]

Right, because a generic drug producer could never just offer to buy some off people.

Let alone just looking at the patent application, which already lists all the ingredients and processes being patented.

[grumbler]

Can you provide a source that says they were losing money on the drug at the lower prices?

My source is the same as Jon Miller's (which you didn't challenge and therefor presumably accept). I just reached a different conclusion based on the same data because my analysis was more complete.

[giblets]

My source is the same as Jon Miller's (which you didn't challenge and therefor presumably accept). I just reached a different conclusion based on the same data because my analysis was more complete.

So you're both making up numbers?

[grumbler]

So you're both making up numbers?

Certainly the $7000, costs below $1 and $13, $1 million, and $10 million figures were made up. That was my point.

[Jon Miller]

Certainly the $7000, costs below $1 and $13, $1 million, and $10 million figures were made up. That was my point.

I did not make up numbers, I used reason and the fact that other companies sold it (so made money on it) for years at 1$. In fact, companies still make and sell it for less than 1$.

In the United States, as of 2015, with Turing Pharmaceuticals' acquisition of the U.S. marketing rights for Daraprim tablets,[17] Daraprim has become a single-source and specialty pharmacy item, and the cost of Daraprim has increased.[18] The cost of a monthly course for a person on 75 mg dose rose to about $75,000/month, from $13/tablet to $833/tablet,[19] or $750 per tablet.[20][21] Outpatients can no longer obtain Daraprim from their community pharmacy, but only through a single dispensing pharmacy, Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy, and institutions can no longer order from their general wholesaler, but have to set up an account with the Daraprim Direct program.[18] The purpose of a closed distribution system, according to drug company presentations and lawsuits, is to prevent generic competitors from legally obtaining the drugs for the bioequivalence studies required for FDA approval of a generic drug.[22]

The price increase has been fiercely criticised by physician groups such as HIV Medicine Associates and Infectious Diseases Society of America.[23]

In India, multiple combinations of generic pyrimethamine are available for a price ranging from US$0.05–$0.10 each (3–7 rupees).[24]

In the UK, the same drug is available from GSK at a cost of US$20 (£13) for 30 tablets (approximately $0.66 each).[25]

In Brazil, the drug is available for R$0.07 a pill, or about US$0.02.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine

See wiki sources for everything I said earlier.

JM

[grumbler]

Well, first of all, Wikipedia isn't an authoritative source, for reasons that are clear to anyone interested in the truth. Wikipedia is written by anonymous laymen and can often get the facts wrong. For instance, the wiki author of the above piece uses a source [22] that is an op-ed piece, not a news piece. The wiki author could have followed the research bread crumbs and discovered that the author of that piece was, in fact, noting the exact opposite: that the FTC urged in this suit that the court consider “a troubling phenomenon: the possibility that procedures intended to ensure the safe distribution of certain prescription drugs may be exploited by brand drug companies to thwart generic competition.” http://www.fdalawblog.net/fda_law_bl...leer-case.html In other words, the FTC told the court that closed distribution couldn't be used to restrict access, rather than that such restriction was the purpose of closed distribution. Plus, this was a completely different case involving different companies and different drugs, yet the article author never lets the reader know that, either. Use Wikipedia to gain a brief overview of an issue, but be skeptical of both the motives and competence of the authors of the articles. Never cite Wikipedia as a source.

Second, pyrimethamine isn't Daraprim, it is a generic, and is, in fact, the kind of thing I was talking about in my initial post on the topic (which addressed the fact that this outrage is largely misplaced). Now, pyrimethamine isn't available to be sold in the US, so, if it being sold for US dollars anywhere but Zimbabwe, it is probably being sold illegally (else why use US currency rather than local?). If it isn't being sold for US currency, then it isn't "profitable [to make] at $1."

Daraprim is only dispensed to a very small number of people; "there are only about 2,000 U.S. patients who use the drug every year." A course of treatment is "less than 100 pills." So, the total sales of this drug in the US, even before the price increase, were under 200,000 pills.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact...araprim-under/

That's what is keeping the generic makers out of the market; who is going to do the research and tooling up to produce a measly 200,000 pills a year? Even if the $750 a pill was pure profit, the whole program would be making only $150 million a year. And, of course, Turing could drop prices if someone even entered a request for such a trial, so as to make the $150 million drop to next to nothing.

Turing's price sucks, but the problem isn't the market, it is the externally imposed barriers to the market.

[BlackCat]

Second, pyrimethamine isn't Daraprim, it is a generic, and is, in fact, the kind of thing I was talking about in my initial post on the topic (which addressed the fact that this outrage is largely misplaced). Now, pyrimethamine isn't available to be sold in the US, so, if it being sold for US dollars anywhere but Zimbabwe, it is probably being sold illegally (else why use US currency rather than local?). If it isn't being sold for US currency, then it isn't "profitable [to make] at $1."

Do you read your own links ?

Though, you are right, pyrimethamine isn't Daraprim, it's the other way around - Daraprim is pyrimethamine, so no, pyrimethamine isn't sold illegally in the US - that would make Daraprim illegal.

[Sava]

I used reason

reasoned used YOU

[Dinner]

I thought he backed down and reduced the price. They didn't say how much though
Or was that another drug that the price was pumped up on?

Instead of a 5000% increase it now only a 1250% increase which is still 1250% too much for a 64 year old drug which should be public domain and availabile as a generic for $7.

[Dinner]

62 year old drug? Is there so little money to be made from its manufacture that no generic drug company has started making it?

They found a loophole which allows them to legally block competition despite the patient being expired. This is a direct response to corruption where companies buy politicians.

[BlackCat]

the patient being expired.

I'm pretty sure that if that's the case, then the price doesn't matter

[giblets]

[grumbler]

Do you read your own links ?

Though, you are right, pyrimethamine isn't Daraprim, it's the other way around - Daraprim is pyrimethamine, so no, pyrimethamine isn't sold illegally in the US - that would make Daraprim illegal.

Generics aren't automatically legal to produce and sell when the brand name is legal to produce and sell, so the fact that generic pyrimethamine isn't sold legally in the US doesn't make it illegal to sell Daraprim. The potential makers of generic pyrimethamine still have to go through an FDA approval process.