Drug Company Fined $100M For Raising Price 85000%

[pateuvasiliu]

They should have taken every single cent those scammers have. Companies like that deserve nothing but banktrupcy.

It's a fucking business.

I don't recall pharmacists signing some sort of contract that says they must throw away good chances of making money while people with regular jobs can do whatever they please. Just because this drug happens to be live saving doesn't mean you should have a right to decide how much they can sell it for.

If tomorrow Apple made Iphones cost 1mil $$ each you wouldn't sue them, you just wouldn't care. This is no different, the only problem here is a moral one. And morals have no place when it comes to laws and fines.

[Endus]

Works great as long as we ignore copyright law, patents and trademarks, like China does.

Kekekeke.

Patents and copyright exist for the nation's benefit. If someone's abusing it, they've lost the moral ground to claim that right, frankly. Same way that if you hold up a liquor store, you don't get to keep the money, or the gun you used.

[Katchii]

Should be done with a lot of them, always a step though.

And people honestly wonder why the fuck I despise Pharmaceutical companies, a LOT of them are nothing but charlatans because this gross inflation of prices is all too common.

Not saying some companies don't hike their price, but do you have any idea how much it costs to get a pharmaceutical to market? There is a legitimate reason new, brand name (meaning not generic) drugs cost so much. Even charging a "fair" price makes them high. but there's a difference between high and outrageous like in this story. Companies do have to make money off of the their investment, otherwise nobody would do it.

[INVASMANIXOXOXO]

It's a fucking business.

I don't recall pharmacists signing some sort of contract that says they must throw away good chances of making money while people with regular jobs can do whatever they please. Just because this drug happens to be live saving doesn't mean you should have a right to decide how much they can sell it for.

If tomorrow Apple made Iphones cost 1mil $$ each you wouldn't sue them, you just wouldn't care. This is no different, the only problem here is a moral one. And morals have no place when it comes to laws and fines.

I feel like your post and the post right under it are all that I stand against (even if they are polar oposites). MONOPOLIES=Bad. Capitalism=good. The other guy is also very wrong in my opinion. Patents and copyrights do not exist for a nation's benefit, they exist for an author's benefit. But in a maybe unrelated slightly convoluted way I do agree with your train of thought Endus. Lets say USA freedom llc owns 60% of the land in the US that is capable of producing beans, but they chose to only produce and sell beans from 1/3 of that to maximize profit/market share or whatever other reasons. Yes, that is wrong. Give up the remaining 2/3 of the land or produce beans from it and drive down the costs for us plebs.

[Socialhealer]

This is why china is great, copyright laws? hahaha good luck they just copy your ideas, sell it and you can cry all you want but you won't be seeing a penny.

personally i hope they all get cancer, as they don't have a cure for that to sell.

making money off of people is fine, raising a drug infants need by 850 times? that's exploitation and disgusting.

[kail]

It's a fucking business.

I don't recall pharmacists signing some sort of contract that says they must throw away good chances of making money while people with regular jobs can do whatever they please. Just because this drug happens to be live saving doesn't mean you should have a right to decide how much they can sell it for.

If tomorrow Apple made Iphones cost 1mil $$ each you wouldn't sue them, you just wouldn't care. This is no different, the only problem here is a moral one. And morals have no place when it comes to laws and fines.

Issue here is you're comparing necessary medicine some literally need to a luxury smartphone that has numerous alternatives. You did a great job pointing out the main issue with privatized healthcare industries.

[Ripster42]

Issue here is you're comparing necessary medicine some literally need to a luxury smartphone that has numerous alternatives. You did a great job pointing out the main issue with privatized healthcare industries.

You do realize you're quoting a post that literally says, "Morals have no place when it comes to laws and fines," when laws are literally just codified morals.

[Fojos]

This anti-trust case is socialist in nature. The company bought the patents on the free market. The govt essentially nationalized some of them and made them public.

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The market for the patents is a free market.

The fact that patents exist, excluding others from producing and selling the same product is still against free market because it's control. In a real free market companies like this one would die out quickly because there would be others willing to sell it for much less.

[jdbond592]

Don't want to pay the price, don't buy it?

[Deleted]

http://www.fiercepharma.com/special-...r-mallinckrodt

this article says revenue for this drug was $760m in some recent year. and we can safely assume it cost less then $40 per dose to make, and since its a drug from the 1950s that this company didn´t even develop themselves R+D costs are a non factor.

$100m fine is a joke. should at least be 10 times that.

[Ripster42]

The fact that patents exist, excluding others from producing and selling the same product is still against free market because it's control. In a real free market companies like this one would die out quickly because there would be others willing to sell it for much less.

There's no such thing as a truly free market. See US Steel and Standard Oil for what happens when you actually try to have a "free market" without government regulation (and really, governments enforcing any property rights is also a perversion of "free markets"). You're just quibbling about the degree of government interference.

In a "real free market" companies like the ones that make drugs wouldn't; as it would be almost impossible to see returns on their investments.

[Deleted]

Don't want to pay the price, don't buy it?

That is an incredibly bad argument when talking about medication that could save countless lives.

[Moadar]

100 million isn't even a dent in a company like this. These companies own politicians. The past couple years have really made me sick of ivory tower yuppies raping everyone else. At this point I wouldn't even mind if angry mobs formed and stormed the places these people reside in and subject them to mob justice.

[Kapadons]

Where does the fine go to? The parents that were gouged or lost their child due to this?

More likely it's lining the pockets of the FTC and its executives. It's a damn shame.

[Spectral]

Given the age of the drug, I'm not sure what was rendering it an exclusive product. I don't have time to do any research at the moment, anyone here that's already done the reading that could fill me in? IP rights typically don't last that long, so exclusivity on old products typically relies on regulatory rent-seeking.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Im starting to think you know very little of how R&D of drugs is done. so let me take you a tour. A cancer related medicine can cost around 800mill to 1.2 billion and take around 10 or more years to develop with a succes rate of 13%, not even universities are ready to pay such risk.

Also on a unrelated note fuck off anti-capitalists snobs, specially if you are foreigner because you should be fucking grateful that we subsidize your healthcare by funding R&D.

For some reason people think the fact that drug companies invest a lot into R&D is an excuse to allow them to engage in practices that negate competition and gouges prices not for R&D funding, but for big fat bonuses for CEOs and share holders.

Drug companies make back R&D money extremely easily. It's people who seem to believe that they're justified in gouging seem to be the ones who don't understand how R&D funding works.

[NED funded]

For some reason people think the fact that drug companies invest a lot into R&D is an excuse to allow them to engage in practices that negate competition and gouges prices not for R&D funding, but for big fat bonuses for CEOs and share holders.

Drug companies make back R&D money extremely easily. It's people who seem to believe that they're justified in gouging seem to be the ones who don't understand how R&D funding works.

Yes Im well aware R&D is done on the future returns rather than on how much money does the company make now. My point was.on brand drugs not the generic ones, thats unrelated to this case.

[Shadowferal]

That's it? Only 100 million? Should have been screwed harder.

That wasn't even "screwed."
100 million is nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

[isuridedes]

You have a sauce on the 500 million figure my friend? And yes Im already aware of the overpaying, hence the subsidy.

You can read the study here https://www.citizen.org/documents/ACFDC.PDF

It's from 2001 so I imagine we would have to adjust their numbers for inflation but even then we're probably nowhere near the costs you're claiming, particularly when you don't use that old study from '91 that tacked on taxable deductions and unrealistic (but potential) risk costs to the total sum.

The TLDR of it all though... is that R&D is already subsidized heavily by the taxpayer, and costs far lower than pharmaceutical companies portray. The argument that they need to charge $X to recoup the costs of R&D doesn't hold much water.

[Stormspark]

They should have taken every single cent those scammers have. Companies like that deserve nothing but banktrupcy.

Honestly, I would take it further than that. Not only are they scammers, they are holding people's lives hostage. I think it should be considered murder and the people involved should be treated accordingly.