Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/27/price-of-40-year-old-cancer-dr.html
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Nextsource CEO Robert Dicrisci, pictured, says they base pricing on "product-development costs, regulatory-agency fees, and the benefit the treatment delivers to patients.
Since there’s no new application for this drug, I call BS on the “regulatory-agency” fees accounting for a significant portion of the increased price. I suppose “product development costs” can broadly include re-branding, advertising, bribes speaking engagements given to friendly doctors, and hiring sexy sales reps.
The “benefit the treatment delivers to patients” (i.e. continued life for a seriously ill person) is indeed a luxury reserved for wealthy people in the view of this greedpig jumped-up patent trolley and the late-stage capitalist system that allows him and his ilk to thrive.
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A simpler reading of this price hike is “because fuck you, that’s why.”
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That photo of Dicrisci has clearly been photoshopped to maximize my discomfort.
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This is where I think a corporate tax rate of 100% should be applied to profits (not revenue) for such ventures. If a firm hadn’t produced the product originally nor is under any other regulator that requires a price hike then all proceeds of the price hike should go to the people or the government.
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“benefit the treatment delivers” should be changed to how badly do they want to live. “If they have the means we have the treatment”
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Is this the tech bros’ new business model? Buy up drugs with inelastic demand and then jack the price way up?
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Fuck this guy and everyone else like him. Fuck healthcare for profit.
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This is how the system works now.
“Entrepreneurs” and “angel investors” don’t want to create anything, they want to profit from renting stuff other people created. That’s what “intellectual property rights” has come to mean.
A sizable portion of young people in my industry dream of selling out to Microsoft. Seriously, that’s literally what they think is the most admirable path to merit and success. Selling out to rent-seekers. That’s our mainstream of culture now.
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For a 40-year-old drug, I could probably have a pound of it made at a Chinese chemical fab for a couple thousand dollars. Not that I have a couple thousand dollars, but if I did I would sooner give it to them than these creeps.
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And they would test it in feral cats for you, too. Because, well, China. Thanks for all the carfentanyl, China.
But I agree: These pharma bros need to be outlawed. They are scum.
This same economic theory was the basis for the recent Republican tax bill.
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Yep. It’s a variation of the patent-trolley model of rent-seeking. Just imagine the kind of mindset that looks at Martin Shkreli’s career and says “yeah, I want to be like that guy!”
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Needs more choppy bois (guillotines).
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That’s been the startup dream for some time now: Develop a business model that lets you stick around just long enough to get bought by a huge company.
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You know, if you’re having a chemical compound made to order and not selling any, do you NEED FDA approval?
There’s a whole path to make generic versions of all sorts of drugs. I think one could create a mechanism that drug prices can’t be changed (beyond inflation or supply chain issues) sooner than x months, where x months is the same time it would take to allow a generic company to enter into the manufacturing and distribution process. Then the drug company could be required to maintain that higher price for a period of 2x beyond the entry of a new competitor.
These guys know well that a generic competitor can come in, but they’re profiting off the inability for there to be a competitor instantaneously.
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I note that https://twitter.com/nextsourcebio is now offline, though the account can still be viewed as of 12/27 via Google’s cached version.
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What little homework I have done suggests that it is a grey area, tending towards “no”. Although I am sure that the FDA would baselessly say otherwise, out of bureaucratic self-interest. Most chemical fabs are making stuff for industrial and research purposes, so there would need to be a strong legal case that they knew you were buying it as medicine instead of for research. And even then, the worst they would do is confiscate the lot.
And then you’d need to be very careful with packaging, dosage, etc. There are some legal and medical risks. But personally I would do it, as it’s less risky than not taking a vital medicine I can’t even remotely afford.
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