Turing Pharmaceuticals is price gouging a critical drug for HIV/immunocompromised

[Independent voter]

Here's Shkreli here, lol



I would be surprised if he doesn't lower the price.

[TirielWoW]

And another story... http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/tb-dru...rine-1.3237868

Can someone with knowledge about US patent / pharma laws explain how a company can have the rights to an off-patent drug? This makes no sense to me, how they can still hold rights to something after the patent has expired.

They can't prevent you from making a generic version, but they can own the rights to the genuine version. When, for instance, Lipitor went out of patent, the company was still making Lipitor and selling it as Lipitor, but now other companies could make generic drugs and sell them under the actual compound name (since the names we know them by are generally trade names).

[Deleted]

So the rights were available for purchase appearently, which makes me wonder: why didn't anyone that wants to distribute cheap/free medicine acquire them then?

[Lucrece]

It turns my stomach that this vile creature is the CEO of a company named TURING Pharmaceuticals.

He's even got a face to match his imp-like nature.

[Deleted]

It turns my stomach that this vile creature is the CEO of a company named TURING Pharmaceuticals.

He's even got a face to match his imp-like nature.

People like him need to be destroyed for the good of all man-kind.

[Super Kami Dende]

So the rights were available for purchase appearently, which makes me wonder: why didn't anyone that wants to distribute cheap/free medicine acquire them then?

Chances are many people didn't assume some scumbag fuck would try and buy it up and increase the price 5000%

[Deleted]

Chances are many people didn't assume some scumbag fuck would try and buy it up and increase the price 5000%

I guess im one of the few that expects things like this then

[Deleted]

So the rights were available for purchase appearently, which makes me wonder: why didn't anyone that wants to distribute cheap/free medicine acquire them then?

Who do you mean by that? An NGO? Some sort of billionaire phillantrope? MMO-C posters? You do realize that to do that you'd have to have the knowledge, money *and* foresight that something like that would happen.

OTOH the pyrimethamine was approved a long time ago, there are no patents or exclusions active, one can just make a new pyrimethamine generic and push it through FDA. Would take some time ofc. So this really just a "get rich quick" stunt by that dude. TBH if I had AIDS I'd just buy the shit the way RCs (designer drugs) are bought - ship pure product from China for 20$. Nothing illegal bout that.

[Kaleredar]

It really doesn't. Lots of deaths are preventable in all sorts of ways that countries aren't willing to pay to prevent. Triage really is a thing.

Apathy is always the best response to life's problems.

[Raelbo]

I guess it's not clear to me why people think they have the right to tell a company what price they're allowed to sell a product they developed at.

Because the company in question expects the people to respect their exclusive rights to manufacture said product. Without patent laws to protect these companies, competition would quickly result in them being forced to go with a more reasonable price.

As far as I am concerned, if any company expects protection of their monopoly of a certain product by means of a patent or copyright, then they are obliged to sell that product at a reasonable price.

[Deleted]

Because the company in question expects the people to respect their exclusive rights to manufacture said product. Without patent laws to protect these companies, competition would quickly result in them being forced to go with a more reasonable price.

As far as I am concerned, if any company expects protection of their monopoly of a certain product by means of a patent or copyright, then they are obliged to sell that product at a reasonable price.

There is no active patent for pyrimethamine. Pharma patents expire in 20 years, pyrimethamine is way older than that. Anyone can make a generic, you just have to get it through the pipeline.

EDIT:

Just to answer the obvious question "why the fuck won't anybody MAKE a pyrimethamine generic like that, then?!" - it's not really very lucrative. At all. It's a fairly narrow-profile drug that's only good at two things: treating malaria and treating AIDS. Nobody in the first world gives half a fuck about malaria, for obvious geographical reasons. AIDS is also in decline in USA/EU and on the rise in poor countries, which are, well, poor. Good money is in drugs you can market to EVERYONE and peddle by the billion - Viagra, fluoxetine, antihistamines and a hundred thousand different variations of NSAIDs (ibuprofen, paracetamol, that sort of shit). Ain't nobody got time nor cash to make an effort to push a drug that's only good for treating poor people diseases.

Mr Whassisname just decided to make a quick grab before discontinuing the product entirely, methinks. Roche (the OTHER pharm company making it) has dropped pyrimethamine a long time ago already.

Welcome to post-Gibson global economy, bro.

[Ol Scratch]

How is Obamacare not a part of the problem when it makes having medical insurance mandatory for all people?

Because it doesn't make it mandatory? The price gouging has been there for decades. "Obamacare" just means more people will be less affected by said gouging because they at least have access to insurance now. It doesn't do anything to solve the problem, but it's not exactly making it worse by any significant degree. The existence of insurance at all is the root cause. Until it's completely obliterated, the problem will never be solved.

[Puremallace]

The biotech etf went down about 5% on Hillary Clinton's tweet. The smartest free-market money in the world is on a Clinton 2016

You know you are hated when even CNBC commentators are comparing you to the evil villain from a bond movie lol

[Korlok]

Its literally in the first paragraph of the article linked in the OP

Are you being intentionally dense?
The source I'm asking for is in reference to 'Its mostly avoidable considering the overwhelming majority of people who need the drug need it because they have AIDS'
You know for certain that the vast majority of people needing this medication have AIDS then?

[Huehuecoyotl]

Surely the US have some kind of monopolies commission? And surely this is 100% the most obvious monopoly abuse in the history of corporations? Can't they be sued on this basis? Or is the US so wrapped up in the notion that capitalism is the god that can do no wrong, that they wouldn't dare even try to reign it in?

[satimy]

Socialism -is- the middle in between two extremes.

Socialism has to many definitions to make that claim

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Oh and this guy is great, he's exposing how terrible our health system is

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Patents are not a thing of capitalism. If the drug was in a capitalist situation twenty companies would manufacture it and sell it on the market at different prices and the consumer would pick the cheapest or brand or the brand that gave them the most bang for their dollar..

Parents protect private ownership which is critical to capitalism.