Linda and flat-lying sandstone
Guess where
I have written about this before, as you certainly remember:
Newsweek has published another article on the subject, which
contains some interesting examples of severely overpriced cancer drugs and some
intelligent speculation about what might be done to remedy the situation. The facts are well know, I hope:
1)
New drugs are very expensive to develop, mainly
because of the intrinsic difficulty of doing biochemistry at this level, but
also because of all the bureaucratic hoops that must be jumped through to bring
something new to market.
2)
FDA rules require Medicare to cover any approved
drug, no matter if it is or is not a significant improvement on existing
standards of care.
3)
Once a drug is approved, it is the drug company
that sets its price – no free-market competition is involved.
4)
Cancer drugs frequently cost much less in other
countries, but may not be imported. (Why
are they so much less expensive? Well,
if I was from Singapore, say, and wanted to get into the Gleevec game, for
instance, I would visit the United States, buy a dose, and then fly home. I would then hire some smart organic chemists
to analyze the stuff, and I would raise money to build a plant. Thus, I could crank out my version of Gleevec
with no development or regulatory costs whatsoever. No
wonder I can undercut the price of Novartis, the parent firm. Actually, Gleevec is a bad example because
Novartis is a Swiss company, although the drug in question seems to be
manufactured in East Hangover, New Jersey. Full disclosure: I own stock in Novartis and
wish I had a lot more.)
So, anyway, read this article and think about the
problem. Write some comments. As the population gets older and the docs get
smarter, medical costs are not going to just wither away. Something needs to be done.
Here is a NYTimes article that helps account for differences in drug pricing. Why, for example, can you go on an aspirin regimen for $10/year but need to fork over $100,000/year for many new anti-cancer drugs. Bottom line: it’s not entirely greed
ReplyDelete.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/upshot/how-to-decrease-prices-for-an-expensive-class-of-drugs.html?ref=health&_r=0