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from the Good-news-for-cross-border-insulin-shoppers dept.
If you're into going to Canada for lower drug prices, things should get even better after the middle of next year. Canada is going to be changing the way it calculates the price of medication, which will lower costs. Canada can do this because, unlike the USA, Canadian regulators are allowed to determine when a patent monopoly is being abused and act accordingly.
Canada Promises to Save Billions with Tweaks to Patent Drug System:
Canadians can expect to pay less for prescription drugs as early as next summer
The federal government is making changes to the way it will evaluate new drug prices, a tweak it says will save Canadians billions over the next 10 years.
On Friday, the government released changes to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, first set up in 1987 as a shield against what the government calls "excessive prices," set to come into force next July.
"The [board] relies on outdated regulatory tools and information that foreign medicine pricing authorities updated years ago. As a result, list prices for patented medicines in Canada are now among the highest in the world," notes a release from Health Canada.
Under the new regulations, the board will no longer compare prices with the United States and Switzerland, which have some of the world's highest drug prices, when figuring out what companies are allowed to charge. It will still compare drug prices to France, Germany and Italy, and has added Japan, Spain, Norway, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands to the list.
The board will also now have to consider a drug's "value to and financial impact on consumers in the health system" when determining if a price is excessive.
"These bold reforms will both make prescription drugs more affordable and accessible for all Canadians saving them an estimated $13 billion in the next decade and lay the foundation for national pharmacare," the federal health agency said in a statement.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:07AM (45 children)
The fun bit is pondering who has to make up the profit loss they're taking by selling to Canada and such at a discount. It's a hell of a racket, really. Canada says "drop your prices or we won't enforce your patents" and the drug companies have pretty much no choice but to comply. Now, the drug companies certainly aren't going to eat the loss. They're going to do what all companies do in situations like this and charge more to those they can still set their own prices with. So Canada gets cheaper drugs and the folks in the US have to pay for their discount. Not just socialized medicine, internationally socialized medicine.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:19AM (31 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:14AM (29 children)
I don't disagree on there being monopoly issues or that they need addressed. I'm just saying you don't pay for the work, you don't get new drugs. Right now you're making us pay for the drugs you take advantage of and acting baffled at why we don't do the same.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:46AM (27 children)
There's a difference between paying back $10B in drug development costs over the 5-10 years after approval and launch, and simply milking a condition for every cent you can get - as has been done, repeatedly, in the last few years.
Just because investment bankers play long odds and reap insanely huge payouts on the rare occasion when they don't go bust and do hit a runaway best seller doesn't mean it's the best incentive model for every area of human endeavor.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:51AM (26 children)
You have a better one that works with long odds and extreme expense?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @03:23PM (1 child)
I used to do preclinical research. I assure you that if someone like me was in charge it would become at least 4x more efficient.
Standards are extremely low among medical researchers. Even the most basic results can only be repeated like 25% of the time... when someone even tries. They come up with excuses ("it isn't novel") not to repeat each others work. If we had higher research standards the entire amyloid-beta alzhiemer's fiasco would have been avoided, the "cancer is many diseases" excuse would not be in play, etc.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @01:59PM
I don't at all disagree. Bean counters and lawyers make lousy scientists. Your second paragraph may be more thorough but it's the dead opposite of efficient though. More work means more man-hours, which means more cost. It may mean savings over the long term but that would need to be proven before it could be claimed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:24PM (23 children)
When it comes to "gun to your head" medical conditions: price caps. You're researching a lifesaving cure for X (diabetes is a good example, but there are almost unlimited possibilities).... don't expect to be able to charge $10,000 per month per person on treatment for $0.01 per dose manufacturing cost pills.
Outside oversight (as the Canadian system seems to be implementing) with bias toward cures instead of chronic symptom abatement, bias toward the lowest total lifetime costs of treatment... Right now, the system is too heavily biased by actors who steer patients toward treatments which generate the greatest income for them, rather than the best outcome for the patient.
Random anecdotal example: 0.3cm Schwannoma on the tongue - see a new ENT for followup evaluation 1 year after diagnosis in a different city. New ENT, first checks insurance coverage, after Aetna calls the receptionist and explains, then it's time to see the patient. "Oh, yes, Schwannoma, very scary stuff, can result in a string of pearls condition, you want to get that completely excised, I have an opening in my surgery schedule next Tuesday - let's get you on the schedule now." 30 seconds on Google confirms: yes, one case of Schwannoma in a Japanese fisherman resulted in an intracostal (ribcage) string of pearls condition - no other references found.
Not all MDs are like that, but far too many are. Far too many drug reps give lap dances in exchange for high volume prescription writing, and far too many surgeons "accidentally" make future work for themselves while performing a first procedure.
Transparency, oversight, and at least cull the most outrageously egregious outlier bad actors from the game.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:39PM
Yet more wasted breath arguing with the status quo. Things are peachy keen OK?? It is every American's GOD GIVEN RIGHT to rip eachnother off! /s
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @02:09PM (21 children)
Which is one reason idealists do not run pharmaceutical companies. If the $0.01/dose treatment cost a billion dollars and a decade to develop, you don't sell it for $0.02/dose if you want to stay in business. Likewise, if there aren't many people in the world that even need your drug, you have to increase the price to recoup your investment in a reasonable amount of time.
Businesses are not charities and business is why we lead the entire world by such a huge margin on drug/treatment creation. Could the industry use some bullshit checks? Absofuckinglutely. Price caps that keep the pharmaceutical companies from being able to afford a serious level of research? Bad fucking idea.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 12 2019, @02:48PM (20 children)
Clearly, which is why there are things in this world called judges, who exercise judgement in oversight.
When a previous business had done the development and taken the drug to market and was ready to move on to other things, sold the drug outright to another company, and the new company decides to increase the price of the drug 100x - what's that?
Price caps that keep pharma companies from netting over 100% profit on their endeavor within the next year? Again, judgement. There has to be a limit, because if I've got a liter of water and you're walking through the desert 100 miles from the next town, you'll give me just about everything you've got if you need that water. That's not business, that's extortion.
A bad analogy comes to mind: after Hurricane Andrew much of South Miami was without drinking water because they used electric pumped wells. A good samaritan loaded up his pickup truck with bottled water from a grocery store, spent something like $0.79 per gallon on the water, plus his gas to drive it 100 miles into the area in need. He was asking the crowd for $1 per gallon and they f'ing rioted on his ass and stole the water. That was wrong, that's not rule of law or commerce or decency in action on the part of the thirsty crowd, that's the thirsty crowd just about guaranteeing that they'll never get water that way again. I'm on the side of the guy in the truck, even if he's charging $2 per gallon for the water - supply and demand, a couple hundred bucks profit might be fair compensation for his time, trouble, and even risk in delivering the water. If the dude was standing there with the National Guard protecting him and demanding $100 per gallon for the water from the thirsty crowd - they damn sure should have called for his lynching.
Where's the line? $1, $2, $5? I don't know - but long before you get to $100, yeah, there are limits to free enterprise, particularly when you're essentially threatening people's lives if they don't pay up.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @04:05PM (19 children)
Thus my earlier:
If you let idealists decide what constitutes bullshit though, you're going to cost the world a fuckload of medical advances. If a company needs to charge $10,000/month to recoup their investment within half the patent's length, that's what they should charge, even if it means people who can't afford it die.
That's not heartless either. Putting a company that saves more lives with every dollar it makes out of business so that poor people can have the drug as well would cause far, far more harm than the alternative.
There's no need to take either position to the extreme though, despite what politicians and talking heads today spout.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 12 2019, @04:23PM (18 children)
Agreed - if it costs more to save my ass than I can afford, my ass dies. That's business, aka triage, appropriate allocation of resources, etc.
The question is: need. How much profit does a company need? Any time I've thought about setting up any kind of business, if I can't guarantee a 2x profit margin, it's not anywhere near close to acceptable - there are too many risks, foreseen and unforeseen, to even bother launching a new business with less than 100% profit. I'm cool with 100% profit, maybe 1000% profit in certain circumstances.
I'm not cool with jacking up profits to cover the cost of yet another corporate jet, monthly junkets to the Caribbean for the executive circle, etc. and crying "poor us, we're hardly making any money at all". You want to pull that bullshit, work in the entertainment industry, or something else not-essential for life. Hollywood accounting is for Hollywood. If I don't want to pay $50 for the family to see Captain Amazingpants when he hits the theaters, I can wait to watch the movies until they come on DVD to the local public library. If I don't have $5,000 per month to pay for basic lifesaving drugs that cost far less to make and distribute, and my millions of dollars of future income/productivity is cut short as a result, putting my dependents on public assistance - that's not good business for society as a whole.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @05:09PM (9 children)
Believe it or not, that's not the question. The question is how much non-reinvested profit do the shareholders need. Reinvested profit is something you want the company to have as much of as it can find a use for. The cash doled out to officers and their perks is minuscule compared to the profits the company is bringing in, or at least it had damned well better be. What gets distributed as dividends or just banked cash is where you really want to watch the numbers.
Believe it or not, none of the above are my major concern with the pharmaceutical industry. My major beef is the "evergreening" of patented drugs. Adding a drug like acetaminophen or an antacid that isn't under patent to a drug whose patent is about to run out should not allow a new patent to be issued for the cocktail.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 12 2019, @07:02PM (8 children)
So, let's start there... standards? Enforcement? The free market is clearly failing to manage the all too numerous greedy bozos at the top.
If it's good for Mickey Mouse... why not? /s
I have a little experience here, working with a company that wanted to add GRAS markers to existing drugs as a compliance measure - if you detect the Generally Recognized As Safe compound in the person's breath, odds are pretty good they took the drug. What kind of FDA studies do you think are necessary to approve such a non-interactive, no additional active ingredients cocktail? Why, the full safety and efficacy suite, of course... After jumping that regulatory hurdle, there had better be some carrot on the other side. Maybe not a full patent term, or maybe...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:09AM (7 children)
The carrot on the other side is higher sales of off-patent medicines than your competitors, assuming your drug is worth the trouble of making and people buy it. Nothing else is warranted.
None needed. Shareholders can deal with that just fine if it becomes other than a tiny fraction of the company's yearly profits. If it doesn't, the people up top are obviously earning it by making the company so much money with the decisions they make.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:26AM (6 children)
And, yet, they don't. All too often, a small cabal of shareholders exercises full executive control of public companies, siphoning off profits into their pockets until the company posts returns "in line with 5-6% annual growth" expectations. Why not crank up gross profits to 1100% and get a corporate jet, private island, yacht and staff for each executive board member - hey, we're still posting stronger than market expected returns, and if something hiccoughs, we can always bail the corp to chapter 11 and try again - works for the Prez, why should I be any better?
Let's not even get into privately held companies and their total lack of accountability - and many patented drug sellers are this.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:25PM (5 children)
They don't because it is not an actual problem. It only seems that way to people for whom envy is a way of life. In reality, the compensation of executives is essentially never a significant percentage of a company's profits. When it is, those executives tend to be asked to leave or outright fired because board members are usually also stock holders.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:47PM (4 children)
Speaking from direct personal experience, this is not how it is done in Houston - land of Enron, and they're not the only ones who follow that model.
"The Smartest Guys in the Room" documentary could have been about the Houston med device company I worked for as far as executive culture and concepts of accountability are concerned. It's all over town there, NASA contractors are actually the "straight shooters" in the region.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:31AM (3 children)
And how often does a huge company fall to shit because it was secretly pillaged by its executives and board? Rare criminally bad actors are not an excuse to regulate everyone to within an inch of their lives. Punish the actual criminals and leave everyone else alone.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 14 2019, @11:42AM (2 children)
I guess that depends on your perspective of what is rare? In my view, rare is exceeding 25%, not only in number of companies, but also corruptly influenced cashflow. That's significant enough to try to do something about.
Also: within an inch of their lives? Also a matter of perspective, but I'd say: as long as the impact of regulation is significantly less (say 10% of) than the corruption it actually prevents, that's clearly worth doing.
Yeah, like that ever happens when the criminals are in the lizard people class. Too big to fail has the corollary: to big to prosecute.
Without enforced transparency, we'll never know, will we?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 14 2019, @12:09PM (1 child)
Moved the goal posts there, man. We was talking pillaging a company not buying legal pull. The latter I absolutely agree on. Ditto prosecuting folks no matter how many zeroes their net worth has.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 14 2019, @12:37PM
So many ways to pillage a company. I watched Credit Suisse First Boston take over a company with $10M in private equity investment, it wasn't a blockbuster, but it built up to about $30M net worth over 5 years... in the meantime, CSFB - with control of the board, had the company take out debt - from CSFB - and when the market dipped a bit, they had the company assessed by "independent" people of their choosing, and lo and behold, on that day, the company's market value was just about exactly equal to the debt they owed to CSFB - so they restructured, and bought out the equity investors for their current net worth in the company: 0.
As a "founding employee" I was gifted stock "worth" about $50K at the time of the gifting, relative to the $10M actual cash invested shares. I and the initial cash investors, some of whom had put in nearly $1M in personal money, all got checks from CSFB in exchange for our shares. Everybody's check was in the amount of $0.01. This is all legal, in Delaware.
That Enron analog CEO did some good and some bad, but his exit move was to completely screw up a product launch and then hand himself $5M on the way out the door, in addition to some $100M of personal compensation he had extracted over the previous 10 years, not to mention many 10s of millions spread around to his buddies on the top floor, many of whom also took platinum parachutes with him on his way out. The company was reeling for the next 5 years, but does live on today.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @05:10PM (7 children)
Scuse the double "Believe it or not". Still fighting a cold and it's not as easy to think as it normally is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 12 2019, @07:04PM (6 children)
Something some board members seem not to understand, I'm not paid for this, neither are you - it's not going on a resume for future employment or any other value beyond the experience of thinking about the issues and enjoying the exchange.
If I a word, the free message board consuming and discussing audience should really be able to deal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:14AM (5 children)
Yeah, I can't put "debating shit you can't even understand" on a resume. I can put coding and admining on it though. Had to get a letter from mrcoolbp to get a TN driver's license when I got here because I'd only received one bill so far. Since you need a driver's license or the same proof you'd need for one to get a fishing license, it was pretty crucial.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:29AM (4 children)
I just saw a news blurb, our local school district is now requiring certified state ID for on-campus visiting parents/guardians/siblings bringing a forgotten lunch, etc. Purpose being, the ID will be swiped and background checked before letting the potential terrorist on campus. I feel safer already. /s
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:27PM (3 children)
Wonder what metrics they're using for potential terrorist. I mean, by official, published government standards I'm a potential terrorist because I'm a veteran and anti-authoritarian. I'm in fact infinitely more likely to protect children than harm them though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:50PM (2 children)
I'm guessing it's for bench warrants, restraining orders, etc. Not going to catch any actual terrorists, but your garden variety "active shooter" depressed dad going to kidnap their kid away from divorced mom, or shoot up the place for whatever reasons might just be dumb enough to think they can get in after showing their DL, and as well as those things seem to work, they still might get in.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:35AM (1 child)
Why would they not be able to get in? Everyone in the nation is a "potential shooter". You can't reliably tell when or even if someone's going to snap and you can't treat half the nation like criminals at every turn to prevent something less likely to impact you than winning the lottery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 14 2019, @11:52AM
No, but as I understand the new system, you can (legally) treat the entire population like criminals at every turn.
As I said: bench warrants, restraining orders, the espoused intent is to stop legally barred people from doing things they have been legally barred from doing.
Now, how is it actually used? In my experience, if you're a "normal" parent, you can just wave at the desk secretary as you walk in and they buzz you back to the classrooms with a smile. However, if you're a parent of a "special needs" child, or basically anyone who the administration doesn't want to see what's actually going on back in the classrooms, then you "wait here while we tell them you're coming, you're going to need an escort", etc. What are they hiding? I'm not sure what they successfully hid, what they failed to hide included frustrated kids throwing desks and teachers doing nothing to defuse the situation, including actively instructing staff to put the broken desk with exposed sharp pieces back in use in the classroom (against experienced staff's better judgement). There's also the classroom which has a sewer gas problem - they put the kids in diapers in there so they can blame the smell on the kids, but it's actually coming from the plumbing. 250+ pounder staff manhandling 7 year olds, etc.
We're in a better school district now, but even here we seem like we're going to need to pitch a battle with the schoolboard to get our student's bus to arrive on-time instead of an hour late every single day. The official instruction to the bus drivers is to not talk with the parents, but as with the classroom information leaks, staff doesn't always comply with the gag orders.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:26PM
Well, let's see. Insulin was invented in Canada and the original inventors sold the patent for $1 because they felt it was wrong to profit from an invention that was essential to saving lives. Think open source medication. The patent has long expired, as has the patent for GMO human insulin. That's why Novo Nordisk SAs Novolin Toronto and Novolin NPH sell for less today after adjusting for inflation than insulin derived from cow or pig pancreases did 35 years ago in Canada and the rest of the developed countries except for the US and Switzerland.
The United States is rather unique among developed countries in that you don't have universal health care. Canada was supposed to have universal drug coverage as well in the original plan, but that got dropped. Quebec introduced a universal drug plan that anyone who doesn't have a private drug plan is required to join. At the same time, if your employer offers a drug plan, you have no choice - you have to keep it. This was a sop to the insurance industry.
Anyone can buy supplemental health and drug insurance so there's still that option even if you have a company plan.
Since private insurers don't have the same ability to buy in such quantities, and drug dispensing fees aren't regulated for private plans, often just the copay and dispensing fees are more than there's an incentive for retirees and those without company plans to sign up for the public drug plan rather than private insurance if their insurance costs exceed the current monthly public plan cost of app. $100/month. There's a copay, but it's capped at the same amount as the monthly premium, and deducted at the end of the year from total premiums owing, so you know your cost will never be less or more than the total premium.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:42AM
So, assume that's 2.0001 billion dollars, over 10 years, over 37 million Canadians - or $5.40, Canadian, per person per year. Enjoy that one extra Cappuccino per year.
Seriously, though, this is a good program, and an appropriate curtailment of IP profit protections.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:21AM (8 children)
Then maybe the US should stop treating people's health and lives as profit-driven business. That's what civilized societies do.
But who am I kidding. That will never happen. The entire US founding principles are based on darwinism and absolutism of individial rights above anything, including the common good.
The US is not a civilized country. It is very advanced, very sophisticated barbarism.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @02:12AM (7 children)
Yeah, you keep thinking that. And then you watch what happens when we put domestic price controls in. The money has to come from somewhere or the drugs don't get created; even altruistic scientists want to eat. Right now it's coming mostly from us. What's going to happen when that well dries up?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RedGreen on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:18AM (2 children)
"The money has to come from somewhere or the drugs don't get created"
The money will come from where it always has. Either a tax deduction for the research pr using the government funded research that ends up used for the private profit. Usually given to the companies who are so hard done by, the poor obscenely profitable companies, so hard done by all the time... Please give them more money and power they deserve it after all the compassion they have shown for the people who made them rich.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:58AM (1 child)
Yeah, no. The rate of new drug creation (even excluding patent evergreening attempts) has massively outpaced everywhere else in the world here in the US because of private money paying so many people to work on them. The state can not match that. Its pockets are not deep enough.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:40PM
So anyone buying the new version (which is the old version with a new name ) is being charged 20x the price for nothing. But Americans don't care - their insurance will pay for it. Public insurance plans do care, so the off-label use continues, and the patent can safely be ignored because of prior art.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:44AM (3 children)
Maybe they will have to stop spending twice as much on advertising as they do on research.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:54AM (1 child)
That would be nice, yes. I certainly don't want anyone telling my customers "ask your coder about our TLS library". It'd be right fucking annoying and I'd refuse to use it out of spite.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by juggs on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:43PM
So you think the person best placed to choose which medicine to take is the customer i.e. the end user / the patient?
What exactly are they basing that decision on? Probably advertising feel good force fed to them and some partial at best medical advice websites they found online. Websites funded by who and to what end? You can be sure the majority of Jo Schmo users visiting those sites won't research the structure or funding of those sites, even if such information is discoverable.
This goes hand in hand with the customer / end user / patient self diagnosing their issues based on the exact same sources of information with perhaps a bit of word of mouth from people they know.
It's really not a good situation as people tend to "google" their symptoms - which in most instances will bring up a whole raft of possible ailments that could produce those symptoms. Which one they go on to decide is afflicting them is going to be based on the influences identified above. Then they go see their MD and insist on medicine X be prescribed.
Ideally you'd visit medical professionals to obtain an actual definitive diagnosis. Then discuss the most effective course of treatment with them. This of course relies on said medical professionals being completely objective and unswayed by the vast finances swirling around their industry thanks to the big pharma companies. I'm sure some are.
(Score: 2, Informative) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:48PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by number11 on Saturday August 10 2019, @05:23AM (3 children)
Sure they have a choice. They could choose not to sell to Canada. If they weren't still making a profit on the sales, that's what they'd do.
Back when I didn't have insurance, one of the drugs I take was available from Canada for 1/3 less than I could find locally (and I'd comparison shop locally... weirdly, the best price would be from a different pharmacy every time). It was made by the same pharma company, but made in Australia. I could get the same drug as a generic made in India for 2/3 less than the local prices. Both those drugs were bought via Canada but shipped from random pharmacies around the world (Switzerland, NZ, etc.).
Companies don't do that if they're not making money in the process.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:02AM (2 children)
No, "not getting money from the Canadian market" is not what would result from Canada not honoring their patents. Not getting money from Canada as well as from any market that Canada sells the much cheaper drugs produced in violation of the patent to is what would result. Which means no fucking way do they ever recoup their investment on the drugs in question. Which means bankruptcy and no new drugs produced.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:54PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday August 11 2019, @03:22AM
Perhaps America should have followed their part of the deal that resulted in the Canada America free trade agreement. We agreed to honour your pharmaceutical patents as part of that deal and now your trust fund reality star in chief has broken that deal.