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The ABC news website (an Australian national news service funded by the Australian government) reports on a group of high school students from Sydney Australia who have managed to recreate the active ingredient in Daraprim for a mere $20.
Daraprim has received a lot of coverage recently after Turing Pharmaceuticals who owns the patent, initially raised the price of the drug from $13.50 to $750.00, though they have since stated that the price will be reduced.
From the article:
For $US20, a group of high school students has created 3.7 grams of an active ingredient used in the medicine Daraprim, which would sell in the United States for between $US35,000 and $US110,000.
Pyrimethamine, the active ingredient in Daraprim, treats a parasitic infection in people with weak immune systems such as pregnant women and HIV patients.
In August 2015, the price of Daraprim in the US rose from $US13.50 per tablet to $US750 when Turing Pharmaceuticals, and its controversial then-chief executive Martin Shkreli, acquired the drug's exclusive rights and hiked up the price.
Since then, the 17-year-olds from Sydney Grammar have worked in their school laboratory to create the drug cheaply in order to draw attention to its inflated price overseas, which student Milan Leonard said was "ridiculous".
(Score: 2, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:37PM
$20 to create a drug that already exists misses the point of why pharma products often seem so expensive: the cost of the tablets doesn't reflect the manufacturing cost (which is close to zero, oftentimes) but the cost of research, clinical studies and the whole approval process, which shaves many years off the patent period during which the company can turn a profit and recoup their costs.
I totally agree that med prices are inflated out of proportion. But even if pharma companies kept their profits low, the true cost of their products wouldn't be insignificant. The Sydney students didn't have to do the R&D, so their little stunt means nothing at all.
(Score: 4, Touché) by melikamp on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:51PM
Are we talking about an imaginary country in a parallel universe? Because here on Earth, the cost of tablets typically reflects the international drug cartel's ability to charge whatever the fuck they want, thanks to government-granted monopolies on sharing and implementing ideas. Some economists pointed out decades ago, drug manufacturers would mostly do just fine recouping the costs without patents, thanks to marketing and the first mover advantage. In some specific areas, such as cancer research, they would not, which is exactly where taxpayer-funded R&D should step in, so that life-saving drugs are available to everyone, cheaper to everyone, and we can all enjoy lower insurance premiums. Not all problems can be solved by leaving them up to the free market, and public health is a prominent example. But patents, of course, are not in any shape or form a free market tool, they are the opposite: an oppressive distortion of the free market by institutionalized monopolies.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Pino P on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:57PM
Some economists pointed out decades ago, drug manufacturers would mostly do just fine recouping the costs without patents
What patents? Pyrimethamine, the active ingredient of Daraprim was first made available prior to 1953. Thus the subsisting exclusive right in pyrimethamine is not a patent but instead FDA marketing rights, which require proving bioequivalence to the approved product. Shkreli has announced his intent to obstruct bioequivalence studies.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Thursday December 01 2016, @10:01PM
Thanks for pointing this out... I actually knew it, but forgot, and assumed patents were involved.
And I know I am off-topic, but my response above was still valid. Most drug prices have nothing to do with free market, thanks hugely to patent protections.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday December 02 2016, @09:53AM
I'm not going to argue your point regarding markets or monopolies granted by the government. I would like to make one minor point though.
If you are suffering from HIV, and you require this medicine, would you be willing to take a tablet made by these students in their school laboratory, or would you, being immunocompromised, rather it was made in a sterile factory by fully qualified operators? Would you like it to be tested by a chemist, with the environment it is manufactured in monitored by microbiologists and the finished product and all batch paperwork reviewed by qualified quality assurance specialists? Would you like all the equipment, processes and ingredients to be assured and validated and regularly inspected by regulatory agencies?
Sure, you could probably look up how to make this yourself, and get a lifetime supply of medicine for 50 quid. Lifetime might be quite short though.
The one thing that working in this industry has taught me, is that I'd never, ever take heroin or cocaine or Meth, LSD or Ecstasy. I'm absolutely positive that illegal drug manufacturers do not adhere to the same quality standards of safety, efficacy, purity, quality and potency that we do on every single batch of product we make.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:53PM
Fine so the price of medicine is due to the R&D. Except Shekreli's company acquired the rights to sell the medicine, they did no R&D.
And seriously can you really justify going from 13 dollars to 750 dollars a pill?
750/13 = 57x price increase. Thats reasonable? No it's not. Its price gouging.
When we have a disaster and places start jacking up the prices on say gasoline doesnt the government step in and limit it? Yes. In fact most states have laws concerning that, see Florida's here:
http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/Main/5D2710E379EAD6BC85256F03006AA2C5 [myfloridalegal.com]
So if the government can stop price gouging on stuff like food and gasoline then they should be able to reasonably stop price gouging on medicine.
Unless of course you think a 57x price increase is not price gouging, in which case I whole heartedly disagree with you and think you need to re-evaluate your position.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:16PM
He's taking a step back from the specific situation and making an accurate statement based on the larger pharmaceutrical industry as a whole.
Notice that stating "R&D is expensive" is not equivalent to stating, "Companies can overcharge for medicine." Taking facts at their face value and not adding or subtracting from it because of our own biases (however "correct" they are) is an important skill to have online.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:29PM
Its important to highlight the difference when defending an opposing point of view. We are in the age of cynicism where people are forced to presume ulterior motives behind everything.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:49PM
The R&D and testing to bring a drug to market are expensive and risky. The company gets a patent and a worldwide monopoly on production and distribution to recoup those costs rapidly. After that, the drug is supposed to become unencumbered and participate in healthy, free market economy.
Daraprim, for example, was patented in 1933 and has been available for generic manufacture since 1953. This is why you could get it in the US for $13, in Canada for $1, and in most of the rest of the world for less than that. It's profit margin is so low there's only one FDA-approved US manufacturer. When Shkreli bought it, he realized that this pill is life-and-death for some people and decided to raise the price to reflect the value of the life saved (rather than the cost of production). This is what capitalists do: they charge what the market will bear.
In a healthy market, a competitor would jump in, ramp up production and undercut Shkreli by 10% (satisfying himself with a mere 80,000% profit margin), and so on, until the price returned to something close to the cost of production. Due to FDA, any company that wishes to produce a competing implementation must first demonstrate that it is functionally equivalent to the available product. If Shkreli refuses to sell Daraprim to potential competitors, they can not make that demonstration. Nor do they have any reason to believe that, having invested the capital to test and produce their own Daraprim, Shkreli would not immediately return to the $13 pricing, eliminating any chance for the new player to profit. (This part is very much the same reason incumbent ISPs don't have any real competition).
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday December 01 2016, @08:56PM
He's taking a step back from the specific situation and making an accurate statement based on the larger pharmaceutrical industry as a whole.
While I can't conclusively say what another poster had going inside his/her head, the post you're referencing was deliberately entitled "The students are barking up the wrong tree" (as is your reply, I might note), and references discussing these specific students in the post too, seemingly in support of the "larger" point. So yes, while such an argument COULD be applied to the "larger pharmaceutical industry as a whole," in this specific case, I think you might excuse someone for assuming the post was referencing the present situation -- since it's actually in the title of the thread.
And why jump to defense here anyway? It's a reasonable assumption that many drugs are priced high by companies that have high R&D costs, so it's not like it's a huge criticism that the parent of this thread didn't know that it wouldn't apply here. Instead, why not just accept the additional information from someone who is replying?
Taking facts at their face value and not adding or subtracting from it because of our own biases (however "correct" they are) is an important skill to have online.
LOL. Are you serious?! I'd agree with you that this is a useful skill to have in rational discourse, but the vast majority of "online" discourse proceeds irrationally by people who often pontificate from a state of ignorance. I'd hope that we aspire to better here, but if you're looking for "important skills to have online" to win an argument, I think posting early, definitively, and pushing the edge of trolling (without actually going over the top -- just enough bluster to emphasize your "superior" position) is probably the best strategy to get the most upvotes in most forums. Actual knowledge or nuanced argumentation only comes into the game if you're unlucky enough to have another person challenge you quickly AND that challenge is more in line with the groupthink of the forum in question.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday December 02 2016, @04:21AM
"the post you're referencing was deliberately entitled "The students are barking up the wrong tree""
Yes, and that is absolutely the argument he was making.
"I think you might excuse someone for assuming the post was referencing the present situation -- since it's actually in the title of the thread."
So now you're conflating his statement that the kids are juvenile in their thinking, with the imaginary argument — that nobody made — which is that the kids were not protesting this drug specifically, but rather all of the pharmaceutical industry.
The kids were protesting this drug specifically which demonstrates their ignorance of pharmaceuticals as a whole, was his argument. Then the poster I replied to responded with sources and information regarding legislation that deals with gasoline scarity in the United States, making a direct comparison between fuel and medicine.
You suffer from a lack of reading comprehension, a mental disability, or you think that gasoline and medicine should be directly compared to each other in a reasonable discussion.
"LOL. Are you serious?!"
"I'd hope that we aspire to better here"
"posting early, definitively, and pushing the edge of trolling [...] just enough bluster to emphasize your "superior" position) is probably the best strategy to get the most upvotes in most forums. "
"Actual knowledge or nuanced argumentation only comes into the game"
Pot, kettle, black. The comment, "Please stay on topic" is condescending, perhaps "triggering" to thinkers of your caliber, maybe rude, and can be said in 100 different ways, but that makes it no less relevant in professional structured debate or online discussion.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday December 01 2016, @07:22PM
Yes, however, The patent for pyrimethamine (brand name Daraprim) expired sometime in the 1970s. [quora.com] In other words, any research costs have long since been amortized.
That said, this is another of those drugs for a really rare condition. No generic manufacturer has taken the drug on, because the number of prescriptions per year is numbered in the thousands. Even for generic drugs, there is quite a pile of red-tape to go through, before you can market your product, and competing for a piece of less than $1 million in prescriptions is not worth the hassle.
Heck, it may not be worth the hassle for the original manufacturer - and hence the price increase. I understand the hardship this may place on individual patients, but it is also the way to encourage some other manufacturer to step up to the plate. In the end, no one can force a company to manufacture a drug at all, much less at a price that you want to pay.
Note that this appears to be very different from the Epi-pen mess, where the market is quite large, but competition has been artificially restricted by regulators.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @05:43AM
No it's exactly the same. Competitors in other actual first world countries charge $1 or less per pill.
Artificial restrictions by the regulator is the only reason here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @03:58AM
Read the motherfucking article. The drug they in question used to be significantly cheaper. It had already been on sale for some time. The price was not increased to recoup development. It was increased but "exclusive rights" were acquired. Competition existed, it was removed and capitalism shit the bed on this one again