Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Source: Big Pharma ushers in new year with price hikes on hundreds of drugs
More than three dozen drug companies welcomed the new year with sweeping price hikes on hundreds of medicines, according to a new analysis from Rx Savings Solutions, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The drugs that saw list-price increases on January 1 ranged from generics and blood-pressure drugs to brand-name prescriptions such as the dry-eye treatment Restasis. The average price jump blew past inflation at 6.5 percent, with some medicines seeing double-digit increases—bucking many drug companies' vows to keep such periodic hikes under 10 percent.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 03 2019, @07:12PM (9 children)
To make money, invest in pharmaceuticals, don't consume them.. For that you grow yer own
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Touché) by ikanreed on Thursday January 03 2019, @08:49PM (8 children)
Right, do you have some yeast that have been genetically modified to produce human insulin I can borrow to start my garden?
A plant that grows norepinephrine that I could refine into epinephrine for an epi pen?
I mean, congrats on partially treating glaucoma and low-grade chronic pain, I guess.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 03 2019, @09:02PM
Yeah well, I was kinda directing it at the addicts... It's big money that stuff
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 03 2019, @10:14PM (2 children)
Yeast-pooped drugs are an interesting idea, but ultimately we need a "chemputer", a tabletop machine capable of autonomously manufacturing small amounts of many different kinds of drugs, using easily available compounds.
This is a newer article [gla.ac.uk] that I hadn't read. Might even submit it.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/11/30/science.aav2211 [sciencemag.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @08:09AM (1 child)
this needs a couple hundred of millions of backing at least
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 04 2019, @12:31PM
Well, drug companies themselves could benefit from these machines. While it's not clear that a chemputer would be more cost-efficient than more streamlined processes for specific high-volume drugs, it could help for turning out specialty orders or for testing purposes.
Another obvious application would be to produce drugs on a space station, lunar, or martian colony. You would still need various chemicals to get started, which might be obtainable from yeast or plants.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday January 03 2019, @10:25PM (2 children)
In 1922 diabetics were treated with ox-pancreas extract. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin [wikipedia.org]
In 1901, Takamine successfully isolated and purified the hormone from the adrenal glands of sheep and oxen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenaline [wikipedia.org]
You have oxen on your farm, right?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 03 2019, @11:07PM
If not, the local butcher shop should have all the ingredients. Maybe they'll have a lab out back. Does it have to be an ox, or can you use a moose?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday January 03 2019, @11:59PM
I wonder why they used ox specifically - I wouldn't think the pancreas would be substantially different than an bull castrated at some other time, or a cow for that matter.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday January 04 2019, @08:54AM
No, but I have an easy-to-grow plant that's a great remedy for pain, PTSD, and a pile of other things. Can be smoked, baked into cookies, cakes, vaped, applied as an oil, ...