Posted on 01/23/2005 4:47:17 AM PST by ResistorSister
It’s called hyperparathyroidism, and many of us dialysis patients eventually must cope with it. It’s important to control it, or painful bone problems will develop.
My doc, after taking all the usual remedial steps, says I need a new drug, the first that alleviates the problem. Fine, write me a script.
“James, you’re not going to want to hear this,” my druggist said.
“It costs $13.35.”
“That’s cheap,” I said.
“Per pill.”
What? That’s $400, per month, for the rest of my life. I could mortgage a house for that, or lease a Cadillac.
I left without them. In the car, it hit me: corporate greed, golden faucets in the drug-company restrooms, executives taking home more in a week than I make in a year.
I had to do something, so I hit the Internet. The greed thing simply did not wash. The company is not exactly rolling in dough. Its stock hasn’t budged for three years. It doesn’t pay a dividend. You could make more money on a bank savings account.
So how did we get to $13.35? More Internet research. I deep scanned the company’s SEC statements and financials.
It’s a new drug with limited potential users. Company officials had to pay for many years of research, liability insurance and field trials and then FDA approval, with zero cash coming in. They have only a few years to sell it at full price before it goes generic.
Now they must sell the pills to countries with socialized medicine where costs are controlled by laws instead of the free market. That’s where the big rub takes place for us.
Americans are picking up the worldwide costs of medications, their development, testing, manufacture and some profit to keep the company in business and employees working. Other countries are not paying their fair share, nowhere close.
It’s insane, but it’s happening with all drugs. Americans are subsidizing the world’s medicine cabinets, rich countries including Canada. Then Canada resells them to us. Neat trick.
What to do? Write your congressman? Let’s pass a law like the others have, cutting prescription prices to affordable prices? Twenty-five cents a pill sounds good.
So Congress does that, and there goes this company and the industry.
(I did check on getting the pills in Canada. That country’s government is close to shutting off the pipeline to the States. They don’t want to knock out the American drug industry. They want to keep their own good deal, and keep us paying for it here).
If the world were a logical place, perhaps these countries would be picking up their fair share of drug prices. Like fun. Governments control prices, not the market. No politician over there ever would increase drug prices just to help us. They prefer to squeeze the fat cats — us. What a surprise.
My case has a silver lining. I have prescription insurance. We called them, and after the sticker shock subsided, they agreed to cover all but $30 a month to keep me walking, mowing the grass and hopefully free from a future of terrible bone pain.
What about the folks not on Medicaid and without insurance? What a scary thought. The $400 would be more than crippling. That’s crippling on their family budgets and crippling on their bodies, too. It’s enough to make even healthy people very sick. My druggist says it’s happening all the time. So far, nobody has a solution, just rhetoric, and we all know what that’s worth.
You can reach Repository New Media Editor Jim Hillibish at (330) 580-8324 or e-mail:
A Canadian doctor was recently busted for countersigning prescriptions for American patients he had never met, to allow them to buy up our supply of drugs over the Internet. He has reportedly earned about $250,000 in the six months he was in business for doing this.
Since this is Canada where nobody is punished no matter what he does, the likely punishment for this will be a "reprimand" and he gets to keep the money.
The serious problem being caused in Canada by the Americans buying up all the 'cheap' drugs is that we in Canada can't get the drugs from our own doctors. That, and not the problems this is causing in the USA, is what has started the government crackdown on the pipeline to the States.
We have a prescription drug benefit going into force next year for the Geritol Set and they're still whining about "sticker shock." Cripes!
Why do drug companies sell drugs in Canada? Because they get ten years of patent protection and a captive market.
Oh evil Canada. Oh the poor Merks and Bayers they can't use dollar bills for toilet paper because of the evil socialist Canadian medical system.
Get used to it America your being ripped off by drug companies half of which are based in Europe.
How are we getting ripped off? We ask for these drugs.
How many drugs have you researched and produced?
Could you help me with this claim? Who says they "must sell to countries with socialized med"... and the article further connotes that this sale is at a below market price.
I don't think they "have to" sell to socialized countries... and I'm dang sure they don't have to sell to anyone below market.
I think that some drug companies choose to sell a few bits of drugs below market for PR - but nothing beyond a strong marketing budget.
If Canucks (or anyone else) have unlimited access to cheap drugs, it's because their taxes subsidize prices... making it so that our access to the drugs amounts to Canadian gov't subsidies of US individual drug purchases.
That being said, your point that we pay high prices so that others can have low prices, is not far off IMO. Just ask the UN.
Just out of curiosity, does Canada invent any drugs on its own?
Just last week Merck threatened to cut off drug supplies to Canada unless pharmacies could prove that they weren't exporting drugs to the US over the Internet.
Merck sells the same drugs in Canada as it does in the US at a cheaper price. What does that tell you? It tells me that Merck has no problem selling drugs cheaper in Canada because of bulk buying. They just don't want Americans to know about it. Which they will find out soon enough if they go to dotcom pharmacies.
Oh and in the US health managment companies are not allowed to negotiate lower prices by buying in bulk.
You're being ripped off.
Again half of the drugs sold in Canada and the US are produced by European drug companies so America is not subsidising Canadian drugs and Canada is not getting a free ride on new drug development.
Only 30% of Canadian drugs are proprietary the rest are old non patented generics.
Think beyond the box. Google is your friend.
Like I said, nice racket you all've got going there.
Probably the most important Canadian drug discovery was insulin. From http://www.discoveryofinsulin.com/Home.htm
In the fall of 1920 Dr. Frederick Banting had an idea that would unlock the mystery of the dreaded diabetes disorder. Before this, for thousands of years, a diabetes diagnosis meant wasting away to a certain death. Working at a University of Toronto laboratory in the very hot summer of 1921 Fred Banting and Charles Best were able to make a pancreatic extract which had anti diabetic characteristics. They were successful in testing their extract on diabetic dogs. Within months Professor J. J. R. MacLeod, who provided the lab space and general scientific direction to Banting and Best, put his entire research team to work on the production and purification of insulin. J.B. Collip joined the team and with his technical expertise the four discoverers were able to purify insulin for use on diabetic patients. The first tests were conducted on Leonard Thompson early in 1922. These were a spectacular success. Word of this spread quickly around the world giving immediate hope to many diabetic persons who were near death. A frenzied quest for insulin followed. Some patients in a diabetic coma made miraculous recoveries.
Principled notes that companies don't have to sell, and that's true, but there are two practical problems.
One is that the drug patents are, I believe in all cases, disclosed, so not selling depends on these countries enforcing our companies intellectual property rights. That is, that they won't just start manufacturing generics right away. I don't know how strong this patent-protection regime is worldwide. It's probably decent in Canada and Europe, lousy in Africa and Asia, and not reliable anywhere.
Secondly, it's a marginal cost thing. If companies begin selling in the U.S., then any other markets they add, above their marginal cost of manufacture, which, for estimation purposes, is probably zero, is just additional revenue. It's not fair, but it's the way it is.
Sounds like a bargain in some respects. And once the patent expires, the cost will become much more manageable.
The rackets aren't in Canada they're in Switserland and Germany. We just buy the drugs. When there is a willing buyer and a willing seller at an agreed upon price it's called a sale. That's capitalism not socialism.
If you want to read my posts and ignore what I say go ahead. I didn't make the world I only live in it.
I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. How about since then, any idea?
At below market value.
Don't forget that part. And that's not capitalistic.
You're sort of right; no one is stopping another company from producing the original. Right now, people are buying prescription drugs that are no more effective than their OTC precursors; but consumers and doc's don't take the time to look past the marketing.
If Tide was cleaning your clothes just fine for years, why would you spend extra on "new and improved" Tide?
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