Citing 'Moral Requirement To Make Money', Pharma CEO Jacks Drug Price 400% (arstechnica.com) 670
The chief executive of a small pharmaceutical company defended hiking the price of an essential antibiotic by more than 400 percent and told the Financial Times that he thinks "it is a moral requirement to make money when you can." From a report: Nirmal Mulye, CEO of the small Missouri-based drug company Nostrum Laboratories, raised the price of bottle of nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 last month. The drug is a decades-old antibiotic used to treat urinary-tract infections caused by Escherichia coli and certain other Gram-negative bacteria. The World Health Organization lists nitrofurantoin as an essential medicine. In an interview with the FT, Mulye went on to say it was also a "moral requirement" to "sell the product for the highest price," and he explained that he was in "this business to make money."
Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Insightful)
But maybe it's what they teach at MBA courses.
Anyhow, time to decommercialise medicine. Yes, I know it sounds pinko commie socialist. Even so.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But maybe it's what they teach at MBA courses.
Anyhow, time to decommercialise medicine. Yes, I know it sounds pinko commie socialist. Even so.
Why do you think markets can't correct this type of behavior?
"Goodwill" is also an asset - one that's actually quite valuable.
This CEO just shat all over whatever goodwill his company had.
"moral hazard" of capitalmalism (Score:2)
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't claim that markets fail to correct for a behavior when a government has made it explicitly impossible for them to do so. It's no more fair that the conservative argument that government can't work effectively after it's been defunded or otherwise crippled. If you violate the preconditions, there's no guarantee of the postconditions. That much should be obvious regardless of context.
I'm not suggesting that we need a completely laissez-faire system where anyone can sell whatever they want as medication either. You don't need to have a system of pure government control or a complete lack of it. However, you can't make it illegal for competition to exist or make it insanely expensive to certify medications without expecting the prices to be high.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Insightful)
However, you can't make it illegal for competition to exist ... without expecting the prices to be high.
Yes we can. We regulate them.
What we can't do is assume the free market will sort out a situation when we can't allow free market conditions.
I love free market competition. It works in the vast majority of economic situations. But it cannot work for markets we must heavily regulate and we shouldn't try to force it.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Insightful)
> but the regulations could be modernized and improved.
They certainly could - patents could be made perpetual, and it could be made illegal to make a drug that competes in any way with any competitor's drug.
Oh, you meant better for patients and the public good? First we'd need to hire politicians that are more interested in serving the public good than lining their pockets. Good luck with that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you think markets can't correct this type of behavior?
Because the notion that the market can fix everything isn't real and is akin to a religious belief.
Re: Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:4, Insightful)
You've got that exactly backwards, I'm afraid.
Re: (Score:3)
+1.
The only way that market wrongs can be redressed is after the fact, which is often too late in healthcare situations - if a patient is in an emergent situation, working up the best deal or best pricing is simply not going to happen.
And for those people who claim that lifestyle choices should be taken into account, go to an ICU ward sometime and look at the percentage of patients who are (when well) nominally thin, healthy, working-out adults. Go ahead - I'll wait.
Since you didn't go look the answer is "
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Corporate taxes are just passed on to the consumer. If he can get away with increasing prices by 4x, he can get away with keeping the same profits after taxes at an even higher price.
Corporate taxes are a feel-good measure that don't accomplish much (beyond incentivizing companies like Apple not to spend their profits in the US).
OTOH, if the government hadn't granted him a monopoly in the first place, he wouldn't be harming anyone by his desire for profit. Maybe that's where you should direct your ire.
Taxes don't make money (Score:3, Insightful)
Taxes transfer money. And inefficiently at that (you have to pay someone to calculate the taxes, pay to make the payment, and pay someone
Re: (Score:3)
It was even higher then depending on how you calculate it - and yes, it led to the most prosperous era in US History.
30% base seems a very reasonable percentage for corporate tax rates - and ensure that no amount of write-offs are allowed to cut off below that point.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is just how a sociopath thinks. Quite literally, a sociopath thinks that anything that benefits him (regardless of what happens to the rest of the world) is morally right.
Re: Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:2)
It'sa fiduciary requirement though.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:4, Informative)
Anyhow, time to decommercialise medicine. Yes, I know it sounds pinko commie socialist. Even so.
The market is working to correct this behavior. [washingtonpost.com] Remember, there are intermediaries between the drug companies and the patients. They're pissed off too.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
The market may temporarily correct it, but greed always wins out in the absence of effective regulatory infrastructure.
Remember, for the record, that Adam Smith was *not* in favor of unbridled capitalism, the 'laissez-faire' that is so often touted in his name. In fact, if you read either The Wealth of Nations or The Theory of Moral Sentiments, you'll find that he laments the various bad acts done in the name of pure profit, and enjoins his readers to act well and to take such measures as may be necessary
Re: (Score:3)
No, I got an MBA and they didn't teach that either.
They did teach selling a product at a fare market value, and not to short sell your product and putting yourself in a race to the bottom. They also taught that it is difficult to raise a price of a product too much without the customers getting pissed and switch to alternatives.
I also took my MBA post Enron, so there was also a lot more emphasis in ethics. So much of this nonsense that these guys do was actually discouraged.
I think the guy in this story is
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Are communists unable to detect sarcasm?
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Funny)
I try to avoid sarcasm online. Back in the mid-90's I made some sarcastic comments about a flat earth trying to point how how stupid it was to avoid Occam's Razor. Then a decade later I see this Flat Earth movement and I fear I may had helped cause that. I now avoid Sarcasm on the internet.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Something actually immoral, would be to not teach people about reality. Sometimes people are so far gone you have to point out how stupid they are before you can reel them back in to reality. Humans have a moral imperative to help those people who are too stupid to help themselves.
Fixed that for you.
If you're getting butthurt for being stupid, then being told your stupid....stop being stupid. Problem solved.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5)
OP was making fun of idiots who cannot tell the difference between a socialist idea and a communist one. As a side effect he/she has also lured out those who have no sense of humor, like yourself.
Re:Same Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Europeans and Canadians aren't starving.
In fact, they are far better off than the average american.
Americans are just too uneducated and unenlightened to see the benefits of proper socialised medicine.
Re:Same Thing (Score:5, Informative)
I'm Canadian, and I can assure you that our "socialised" system is:
So please, don't say our system is better than in the US. People are not dying in the streets up here, but when you have a condition, you better be patient. A patient patient.
I'm a Canadian too, and the circumstances you've cited are worst-case and relatively uncommon. Non-critical illnesses are at a lower priority than critical ones, but people get the care they need, regardless of the depth of their pockets. So yes, our system is better, in most ways.
Re: (Score:3)
Who waits for an MRI for that long?
My co-worker had his MRI done within 2 hrs.
I have had MRIs scheduled within 2 days.
A fractured arm isn't an Emergency situation, people can go days without it being treated and be fine.
If the Triage at the ER receives people that are going to -die- without treatment, they will be bumped ahead of you. just like in the US.
Re:Same Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL!
Who decides what is "needed"?
Who decides what is a, "priority"?
Do they just give you a pill and send you home?
Yeah! We don't want a faceless government bureaucracy ultimately beholden to elected officials to set health policy! We want all our healthcare decisions to be made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy ultimately beholden to shareholders! Clearly that is the one true path to success!
Re:Same Thing (Score:5, Informative)
Because these systems are always partially or entirely tax-funded this obviously means that wait times for some non-critical operations can be higher, because people in immediate risk take priority but this is true in the states as well. If you actually compare waiting times for a specialist [commonwealthfund.org] for example, you'll note that US is pretty much on par with the UK, and that Canada is on the slower side of other universal model countries (which, is all advanced countries other than the US). I work for the largest health care district of the Finnish single payer health care system with about a million people under it, I can quote you some numbers (these are from 2015 because they're publicly available [www.hus.fi] (Finnish only though), can't access the current stats from home). Of the 27 most common types of surgery, we had altogether 26 658 people in queue in 2015, of which 19,5 % waited for more than 6 months. The median wait time was 87 days. For the 2 heart-related surgery-types on the list (bypass and percutaneous coronary intervention the median was below 30 days). The question here is: would it be better for the uninsured in the US to wait a bit to get good health care from the existing system with public money, or wait til' they die or go bankrupt? Is it beneficial for the US economy as a whole to remain the only country where people have to go into debt due to medical problems?
Thing to realize is that this is about availability, not quality. Quality-wise the US model is not significantly better nor is it worse. In fact, quality-wise the system is just fine for the people who're insured, the main difference is that the lack of universal public insurance leaves some people outside of the system driving up deaths. And the far more commercialised nature of the systems drives up margins and administrative costs (which is a large part of the huge spending difference (about twice the average spending [healthsystemtracker.org] of comparable countries) between the US and the rest of the world. In fact, medicare for example is already cheaper (per head covered) costs-wise [justcareusa.org] than private options, largely cause it has better costs-management and lower administrative costs).
The are plenty of universal models out there which aren't single payer like Canada or here. All the US would have to do to implement such would essentially be to allow medicare/medicaid like option for all , and it would likely bring total costs down in the long term and better care for everyone.
But sure, keep posting anecdotal stuff about wait times instead of the larger picture., that's always constructive!
Re: (Score:3)
+1.
The US' system may not be qualitatively better or worse, but it definitely is more expensive per unit of healthcare services than other systems. Learned that when in Sweden a few years ago - public healthcare is not inexpensive, but it is far less expensive than free-market systems.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Same Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, your 'invisible hand of Supply vs Demand' isn't working in this particular Capitalist case. The problem is our perverted version of Capitalism. We grant monopolies on pharmaceuticals, and then act in total denial of the ways monopoly distorts supply and demand.
So, I'll grant this guy his 'moral imperative' to charge as much as he can. As long as we recognize (and insist on) Government's moral imperative to fix the distortions of the market caused by, yes, important government interventions like patent protection. I.e., there needs to be a government enforced limit on how much as he can charge. And then let the market work its magic within that reasonable playing field. And if the market doesn't work in all cases - well, maybe those gaps need to be filled by the government too. That's not fascism or slavery or any of the hyperbolic anti-government names you want to use. It's just a simple acknowledgement of reality.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Informative)
There's fairly strong evidence against your primary assumption. Most drug discovery is done by academic, publicly funded researchers, who get paid fairly poorly considering their education, and the hazards of the field.
The ones who rake in the big profits are business and investor types who mostly buy and sell existing IP.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Informative)
Not really. You don't found a pharma startup unless you've got a promising candidate already. Basic discovery happens mostly in universities. The academic researchers find something interesting, use animal models to work out the mechanism and test efficacy, and occasionally even do some human studies. Startups are then either spun out of the university, started independently in conjunction with one of the university researchers, or in some cases just troll through the published literature looking for good ideas. The startup, or sometimes a bigger pharma company, then runs the basic human trials, and, if successful, sells the drug (or the company) to one of the major pharma corps for marketing and distribution.
Basic discovery is still very much a publicly financed endeavour.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. As with the Internet, basic pharmacological research generally takes place at universities - often elite ones, but still universities - many of which are public. Once something looks promising in a lab, depending on the institution's patent and IP structure, the researcher(s) may be able to take the idea and indications to VCs and get funding - but that happens *after* the initial development in an environment funded by the commons.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. You don't found a pharma startup unless you've got a promising candidate already.
Pharma startups spend millions to test millions of candidates. When they find one that looks useful, they do each testing round to prove it out. For the publicly traded ones, you can see the stock price move 10x each time they pass one of those gates. Once they get FDA approval, or sometimes one gate before that, they get bought.
"Basic discovery" is very far removed from product. It's the first link in a very long chain. Of course, you need that first link, or you have nothing, but it's not the universities trying millions of minor variations on an idea, risking millions of dollars on the hope it leads somewhere.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And they spend two to three times as much on advertising as they do on R&D. There may be risk involved, but the bulk of the money is going on pimping their wares, not developing new ones.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you remove the money from the equation, the incentive to develop new medicines goes down.
Precisely why it should be decommercialized and ran by the government. Research can go back to where research for this should be, universities. Funding will be paid by all tax payers. So the scientists working on the research can still make high salaries, but the cost of the drugs will go down drastically since there won't be companies trying to make stock holders happy and CEO/CFO/CIOs who don't do any of the work collecting 7+ figure incomes. They don't need to turn a profit, just cover costs. Win wi
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:5, Insightful)
Can the law of supply (his lab's production) and demand (price people are willing to pay) make this self-regulating?
This is the inherent flaw in that type of argument and the main reason that healthcare needs to be single-payer and pharma companies (and other medical type companies) need to be heavily regulated. Demand is not, "price people are willing to pay", demand in the healthcare world is how healthy do people want to be. Incidentally this is always as healthy as they can be (and fun fact, in many cases if a person decides they don't want to be healthy we consider that to be a disease, potentially even criminal!). This is why healthcare costs go up every year and don't actually ever go down.
Building on this, basic macro-ecnomoics tells us that the supply and demand of a free market is supposed to rise and fall against each other until a general state of price equilibrium is attained. Want to know what happens when demand literally will not (possibly cannot if we want the species to survive) fall? The price can be raised ad infinitum. The execs and many of their politician buddies know this, but they don't ever acknowledge it. Healthcare is literally a money pit if left in the current system and will far out pace wage earnings in all industries eventually. If you don't believe me look at the wage growth over the past several years vs healthcare costs for yourself.
Based on these simple facts (and yes I do mean facts), to me, there is really only one way to fix this appropriately. By changing the system and acknowledging that you cannot apply a free market model to healthcare in any sustainable way. Pricing and costs would be regulated and made equal across socio-economic areas/demographics and then we take all of that excess money that was a result of price gouging and reinvest that into medical research, hospitals, etc. Seriously if we switch to a single-payer system tomorrow we would actually SAVE money as a country.
Most sane people are not asking the business to operate for free or at a loss. They are allowed to make a profit, but not to gouge it simply because they recognized the flaw in the current system. The numbers have been stated over and over, we pay by far the most money per person into healthcare of any 1st world country. If we used that money to improve healthcare availability we would have an affordable system for everyone that you don't have to wait forever for anything to happen. Everyone loves citing Canada having long waits, but that is only for more difficult procedures or tests and even then they are not the only country with universal healthcare (and gasp! there are countries that don't have that same issue).
For me, the solution is sitting right in front of us, but because of the fervor like devotion many people have to "free-market" everything we can't actually implement it yet. This, just like with everything else, is a perfect example of there is no one-size fits all solution for all problems and we as a country need to stop acting like that.
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:4, Insightful)
The same people who have always developed new drugs: Scientists, working in labs, trying to do good work. Corporations do not develop drugs. Those scientists would be just as happy working in a well-funded lab at a university.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Making money is not a "moral requirement" (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, fair enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: A corporation is a legal fiction created by a government granting a charter. Their purpose is to minimize liability for the owners and to create a tax benefit for aggregated capital. Period. That's all they are. That's all they do. No corporation has ever developed anything but shareholder value. Certainly, no corporation has ever developed a drug.
sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
He's not wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
We already know the solution is single payer healthcare. We can see it working in a dozen countries. The question is will we swallow our pride long enough to vote the sorts of people in that'll give it to us?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:He's not wrong (Score:4, Informative)
actually there is, its called fiduciary responsibility.
Fiduciary responsibility just means acting with the best interests of those represented as opposed to serving your own interests. It does not obligate a company or corporate officer to prioritize profits above everything else.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed.. I feel like someone should tell him, "That word..I do not think it means what you think it means".
Re:He's not wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:He's not wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who's lived in both places, I can tell you that the biggest downside of Canadian system over US is all the times where you'd really like to get care right away, but you're not going to die if you don't. *That's* the stuff that really sucks in Canada.
Emergency room visits where you're not bleeding out on the floor, or finding an obstetrician when you get pregnant that's not an hour away, finding a specialist to listen to your baby's heart when it sounds a little off, father needing a hip replacement... With all of those, I've had bad experiences in Canada.
In US, if I need a doctor, I can almost always find one the next day, or next week if it's a really unique case. It absolutely sucks having to deal with insurance, costs, and so on, don't get me wrong.... but it is nice to know that I can see someone quickly when I need help.
Both sides need improvement, and Canadian system is a much better starting point... but it's not all roses up there either :(.
Re: (Score:3)
The key advantage of Canadian system is that your health care is not tied to your ability to pay.
Re: (Score:2)
One definition of moral:
"concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character."
Another definition:
"holding or manifesting high principles for proper conduct."
I would not put "making money" into the category of "high principles". Usually it is the high principles that give way for "making money". Regarding "goodness or badness of human character"; is amassing capital for the shareholders a sign of a good character of a human being? Is it an example of a hum
Wow.... such a flawed conclusion! (Score:3)
In reality, for-profit insurance companies have a vested interest in drug prices being kept in check, because it gets harder to sell people policies when they're stuck increasing their rates sufficiently to cover these inflated medication prices!
One of the negatives of single-payer healthcare is that it would be funded from taxpayer dollars, meaning as per usual -- central government lacks motivation to keep the costs down. Since they don't have to show a profit on THEIR books, they simply find other avenue
This man gives off (Score:5, Insightful)
the stench of evil.
Decades old (Score:4)
So, no patents? Simple solution: contract with some other drug makers to duplicate it.
As much of the money to buy these drugs comes out of the public's pocket, perhaps it would be a better idea to invest public funds in the supply chain up front. Set up a gov't funded manufacturing unit to produce orphaned drugs and steer around patents on things like EpiPens.
Re:Decades old (Score:5, Interesting)
Another one of these (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no patents on this. It's an old medication. What keeps other companies from selling exactly the same substance? Answer: Government regulation.
Government needs to do more to help more companies make these medicines at reasonable prices.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What keeps other companies from selling exactly the same substance? Nothing; Actavis Labs FL INC, Impax Labs INC, Mylan, Novel Labs INC, Sun Pharm Industries, and Zydus Pharms USA INC are all manufacturers of generic nitrofurantoin.
Re:Another one of these (Score:4)
I suspect that is what's happening here, and that is why this guy can jack the price of his generic drug.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Another one of these (Score:4, Insightful)
the requirement to get FDA approval to manufacture, which is at least time consuming and possibly expensive.
Re:Another one of these (Score:5, Informative)
Other companies do sell exactly the same substance. This appears to be an example of a company taking advantage of either (a) consumer gullibility where brand names are concerned or (b) corrupt physicians.
Although from the article it sounds like the competition might be cranking the price up as well, so perhaps it's (c) collusion.
In the rest of the world, apparently actual government regulation successfully keeps the price between $0.10 and $10.
Re: (Score:2)
Free markets don't always produce the optimum solution.
400% price increases are far from optimum. There's never going to be a free market on antibiotics. The government mission should be a robust, safe supply at a reasonable price. They seem to care about safety only. So additionally focusing on enabling robust supplies at reasonable prices (without compromising safety) would be an improvement.
Let’s allow the free market to work (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it was I, not Ms Mash, who posted this story.
I’m always amoused when these low-budget shkrelis claim to be defenders of the free market when they make insane price moves. If we actually did have a free market in pharma, we would be able to fill our prescriptions for this compound at the world market price of $18, as per the closing line that was oddly edited out of my post.
The only way price increases like this can be made to stick is to have the FDA on your side, preventing us from being able to compete. Time to rip out the FDA’s ability to keep competition out of the market. Let it manage testing, not price manipulation.
The reason you can buy the drug for $18 (Score:3)
The free market doesn't solve drug prices. There really is only one solution and it's single payer. Healthcare doesn't work like traditional goods because a) unless you have an 8 year degree you lack the necessary information to make informed purchase, b) it's a matter of life or death, meaning you can't really shop aroun
Re:The reason you can buy the drug for $18 (Score:5, Interesting)
You can buy generic Nitrofurantoin in the US for $15 for 14 capsules. That's what the free market provides.
The reason American insurance companies pay $2800 for the same treatment is because under the ACA, they can get away with this crap and maximize their profits.
The US has a large single payer system and it is horrendously inefficient. If you want to use single payer to lower drug prices, you need European-style nationalized healthcare.
Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly how for-profit industries work.
Maybe instead of trying to find ways to make for-profit healthcare marginally less of a roiling tire fire for Americans, we should instead nationalize healthcare, like the rest of the civilized world.
:|
I think he needs to read the dictionary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't consider "making money" to be a moral requirement personally, but if someone wants to use that as the basis for their b
Moral Requirement to Remove Market Constraints (Score:2)
Ok... decades old drug, these guys are taking advantage of a government-mandated monopoly (patent) that turned into a natural monopoly - US patent exclusivity is seven years [fda.gov]. FDA needs to create a process to automatically institute a fast-track for generic competition in cases like this where a drug's price is increased by over a defined threshold (100%?). The resources required to staff such fast tracking should be recoverable in reduced cost to Medicare/Medicaid/etc. Let the Pharmacy Benefit Managers p
Monsieur Guillotine would like a word with you (Score:3)
We're we told drug prices would be lowered? (Score:5, Funny)
I seem to recall some orange-faced liberal from New York City telling us he'd force drug companies to lower the price of their drugs. You know, use the power of big government to dictate to private companies how they should run things.
He wasn't lying when he said that, was he?
Re: (Score:2)
I seem to recall some orange-faced liberal from New York City telling us he'd force drug companies to lower the price of their drugs. You know, use the power of big government to dictate to private companies how they should run things.
He wasn't lying when he said that, was he?
Hmm; he doesn't look [google.com] orange to me ... sure you don't have some latent hidden subcutaneous dog whistling racism there, buddy? ;)
Typical Big Pharma corruption (Score:2)
Big Pharma is extremely corrupt. This is just the tip of the iceberg that will be exposed later this year / next year.
Placing profit above people's life & health is immoral. How much profit is "enough" ?
--
Main St. built America
Wall St. robbed it.
Re: (Score:2)
How much profit is "enough" ?
None. You don't seem to understand these people.
At what point does assassination become moral? (Score:2)
Some argue that it is already the case for people who feed off of the misery of others and through the profiteering acts of assholes like this guy their numbers are ever increasing. It won't even need to ba a majority before the backlash comes because at some point a significant is going want to hold these assholes accountable whatever the majority thinks.
Common myth (Score:4, Informative)
It is a recurring myth that corporations are somehow absolutely required by law to seek profit. It seems now is a good time to mention that this is absolutely not true. Corporations are only required to do what their charter says, which usually includes some notes about profit, but also more importantly defines the role the company will take (like improving healthcare).
This CEO is avoiding the legal implication by claiming it's a "moral" requirement. Of course, that means there's no written guideline to which we can refer that will identify this as blatant greed, so it becomes a matter of personal judgement. I hope that's remembered in the future whenever the CEO tries to claim he's always acting in the public interest.
He's Unfortunately Right (Score:2)
The CEO has a fiduciary obligation by law to provide the most value to his shareholders. If the market will pay a 400% increase, he's doing his job.
Except when it comes to the demand curve in health, the fcuker goes vertical.
Is this right? No, and it's why I believe we're going to see big pharma get a bloody nose one of these days especially in regards to antibiotics which are quickly becoming useless in the face of common diseases.
Layling low is key to getting away with it (Score:3)
You know, the government knew all about Shkrelli's crimes before he raised the price of that drug. And then he got known for being an asshole that raised a generic drug's price in this same way, forcing the government to do something about him. Congratulations, Nirmal Mulye, you've just made yourself very interesting to the FBI.
Pharma execs get the bullet first. (Score:2)
Moral requirement not to support patents (Score:5, Interesting)
Inventors will invent because we want to solve problems, because there is profit in providing solutions to our customers. We don't need patents to do that. (and we don't need drug patents either - our way of developing drugs is wasteful and broken)
Today when someone actually comes up with something innovative they often don't patent it. Manufacturing methods, if they are truly useful are rarely patented. Small companies can't defend a patent and any inventor who is altruistic will publish their idea almost anywhere other than the patent office. Not only are patents now unreadable (I can't make any sense of any of the patents my name is on) but we are told not to read them because it might increase our companies liability.
When companies spend more money on patent lawyers than on new product development (Apple, google, Oracle) or get screwed when they don't (RIM/Black Berry) we have a problem.
It is now your moral duty to shun East Texas and actively fight patent laws.
Re: (Score:2)
Your assessment of the reason for Patents is misguided and misinformed. Patents exist to reward inventors with a limited-time frame during which they can maximize their revenue from the product of their works, by providing an alternative stream of income from licensing of the patent to others. And, it still functions that way.
Only vain people seeking self-satisfaction apply for a patent they don't intend to turn into income.
And, that arcane language is a tool used by attorneys to make the application suff
Corporations. (Score:3)
Locked in an airtight room (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd love to have that guy locked in an airtight room. "I can sell you some air - it only costs $5000 per litre, cash up front." "But, but... I don't have that much cash on me!" "Well, I'm sorry sir, but it's a moral imperative for me to make as much money as I possibly can. Ten thousand people who suffered badly because of your drug-price gouging want to do a group buy of all these air tanks. Unless you can beat what they're offering, I'll have to sell it all to them - it's just the right thing to do!"
Greedy...and self-defeating (Score:3)
There are dozens of other manufacturers of this same medication (see https://www.pharmacompass.com/... [pharmacompass.com]), and four newer alternatives to this medication that are more widely prescribed (https://healthplans.providence.org/providers/news-and-events/provider-enews-archives/older-articles/uti-drug/).
Basically, this CEO wants to get out of this highly-competitive marketplace, but is too stupid to just shutdown it's manufacture and sell all remaining stock of the product.
I love it when incompetent people try to boost their personal wealth, but slit their own throats in the bargain.
Time for some drug patent reform. (Score:2)
This sort of complete market capture for unlimited periods needs to die.
Rework the system to give these companies 10 years of sole manufacturing rights.
Then 10 years of royalties on their drugs being mass-produced across the industry.
After that, let competition decide the winnner.
And if someone hits this sort of market capture, it then behooves competitors to produce their own brand, driving prices back down.
Because this shit is insane.
Morals (Score:3)
It's just as moral to shoot the CEO in the head. After all, saving millions of people money is the moral thing to do, right?
How? (Score:2)
Decades old? (Score:2)
If it's decades old, then it must not be patented. Why isn't a competitor beating the living shit out of them?
Or to put that another way, maybe this company happens to charge that much, but what does it actually cost a user buy?
Failed CEO Moral Leadership (Score:3)
It's a legal requirement to make money, not a moral requirement.
Jesus said to help the poor and become fishers of men, not banksters.
Only in the USA (almost) (Score:4)
Almost all major world powers limit the amount drug companies are allowed to charge. This is exactly why! I don"t give a shit about freedom or capitalism when it comes to life-saving procedures and medicines. This should be illegal and no one should make a profit on suffering. People that think this is acceptable are garbage people, in my opinion.
Re:What do you know the man is a comitted lefty (Score:5, Informative)
On a world scale, the US democratic party is on the right of the center of the political spectrum. Despite being in power for years, they still didn't implement basic social net such as free health care that are considered standard everywhere else in the developed world. Even right-wing political parties support the idea in most places.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My friend -- There is no such thing as 'free'. There is only 'not directly paid for'. The labor and materials to create the artifacts ( tools and medicine) cost more the a few somebodies quite a great deal , and that is not to mention those who perform the diagnosis and dispense the needed medicine. There can not be any realistic question about someone paying for all these things, the only question is who and how.
Do you pay for them directly as you consume them?
Do you pay for them via a direct tax that i
Re:What do you know the man is a comitted lefty (Score:5, Funny)
That's one of the reasons there is so much joint animosity against the current President, he's actually trying is damnedest to keep his campaign promises and that is a threat to the permanent politician class.
Indeed, when I think of Donald Trump I think of a man who keeps his promises. A paragon of virtue right there. Quite a catch.
Re: (Score:3)
The US does most of the medical research for the world, and pays for it. Those are the "better results" from the US system - advances in medicine. "Covered" isn't saying much: at what standard of care?
and get free doctors + meds in prison (Score:2)
and get free doctors + meds in prison
Drug Patent (Score:3)
Whatever perversion of the patent system that still has this drug covered decades later, it needs to be changed.
Re: (Score:3)
Somebody else created this possibility, can't blame the CEO for taking advantage of the situation.
Somebody else created these guns and liquor stores, can't blame the robbers for taking advantage of the situation.