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Leading drug companies including Teva, Pfizer, Novartis and Mylan conspired to inflate the prices of generic drugs by as much as 1,000 percent, according to a far-reaching lawsuit filed on Friday by 44 states.
The industrywide scheme affected the prices of more than 100 generic drugs, according to the complaint, including lamivudine-zidovudine, which treats H.I.V.; budesonide, an asthma medication; fenofibrate, which treats high cholesterol; amphetamine-dextroamphetamine for A.D.H.D.; oral antibiotics; blood thinners; cancer drugs; contraceptives; and antidepressants.
"We all know that prescription drugs can be expensive," Gurbir S. Grewal, the New Jersey attorney general, said in a statement. "Now we know that high drug prices have been driven in part by an illegal conspiracy among generic drug companies to inflate their prices."
In court documents, the state prosecutors lay out a brazen price-fixing scheme involving more than a dozen generic drug companies and just as many executives responsible for sales, marketing and pricing. The complaint alleges that the conspirators knew their efforts to thwart competition were illegal and that they therefore avoided written records by coordinating instead at industry meals, parties, golf outings and other networking events.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday May 13 2019, @08:57AM (16 children)
> people won't buy it if it costs too much.
How much is your life worth?
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:04AM (15 children)
I probably wouldn't take any of these drugs anyway (except maybe adderall under exceptional circumstances), so I'm not a good example. But in general, drugs != life. That's another of those religious mantras the healthcare industry has you repeating. They want you to think:
Health insurance = health care = health
Both equalities are wrong.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @09:54AM (7 children)
> drugs != life
Easy thing to say when you are young and healthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:05PM (5 children)
How did people live so long before the 1950s? Just look at distribution of lifespans of historical figures who didn't die due to violence or in childhood, it was about the same as today. The only thing that has changed is energy has become much cheaper, so it is not just the rich and powerful (who are overrepresented in history) who are living so long. The average person in the US/Europe lives like a king from 400 years ago.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday May 13 2019, @03:18PM (4 children)
The diabetics died. For them, one specific drug was life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @04:16PM
Yes, and type I diabetes makes up like .0001% of what we are talking about (same with heroin addicts, etc). Also the treatment was developed before medical research got taken over by people who had no idea what they are doing (approximately WWII).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @04:42PM (2 children)
Eg, far more people die just due to "medical errors" than diabetes:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/03/476636183/death-certificates-undercount-toll-of-medical-errors [npr.org]
Medical errors doesn't count all the deaths from poorly thought out standard practice.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @05:01PM (1 child)
That's almost certainly correct. Diabetes is much more likely to cause blindness, loss of a finger or toe, or leg or arm, neuropathy, etc. than death. So if you don't care about being blind and crippled, it's not much of a problem, because you'll actually die of something else.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @05:24PM
No, without insulin type I diabetics will not live to adulthood. Type II diabetes is the result of bad health advice (low fat diet).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @08:11PM
you're a fucking idiot. the drugs are ridiculous hacks that usually kill people faster.
(Score: 5, Touché) by FatPhil on Monday May 13 2019, @11:04AM (6 children)
Using the example of an insulin-dependent diabetic, please expand on your thaeces (that's half way between 'thesis' and 'faeces').
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 13 2019, @02:00PM (5 children)
I don't think you understand how qualities of sets work. One subset being correct does not make the whole thing correct. For example a heroin addict needs heroin or faces a severe health threats too.
And insulin is fine for what it is, odd that progress on diabetes treatment hasn't improved much since the 1930s though isn't it? Somehow they just keep finding ways to make insulin more expensive.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @05:08PM (4 children)
But insulin *is* the specific treatment. If you want to claim there's been regulatory capture, I'll 100% agree with you, but if you want the claim it should be deregulated, I'll 97% disagree with you. What is really needed is strong action to prevent and remove regulatory capture, and not only in the drug market.
I believe that nobody who has ever worked as a manager or supervisor in a field should be allowed on the regulatory commission, and that anyone who has ever served on a regulatory commission should be legally forbidden in strongest terms from ever in accepting ANY emolument in ANY form from an industry that they have regulated. This includes stocks, though I would exclude index funds that they are not involved in the management of. And I don't care whether they held the stock before getting on the regulatory commission, they should still be forbidden from accepting payments from it...including by selling it. They should sell it *before* they sit on the commission.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @02:33AM (3 children)
Deregulation is an effective way to get that.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday May 15 2019, @04:02AM (2 children)
Unfortunately, the bad effects of deregulation are often worse than the bad effects of regulatory capture.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 15 2019, @10:18AM (1 child)
And they often aren't. How successful deregulation is depends in large part on what isn't deregulated. Point is though that that if you aren't regulating in a particular way, then you can't have regulatory capture of that particular way.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday May 15 2019, @05:03PM
It's always tricky drawing conclusions from history, as more than one thing has always changed, but it is my impression that regulations tend to inhibit new competitors, even if unbiased. OTOH, they often also act to prevent the worst abuses. And large companies also act to inhibit new competitors in the absence of regulations, often quite a lot more abusively. There are also other trade-offs, but to me it seems that if you remove regulatory capture the balance would swing strongly in favor of industries being regulated sufficiently strongly to prevent socially damaging abuses.
Unfortunately, there's another factor, which is that those holding power tend to act to increase the power they hold, and those most desirous of power will strive most strongly to attain it. This would also need to be ameliorated. I would suggest, in addition to the measures I proposed to avoid regulatory capture that there be a pool of qualified candidates, and that members of the regulatory body be selected from that by lot.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.