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Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-drug-prices-20180911-story.html#

emphasis added

quote:

By MICHAEL HILTZIK
SEP 11, 2018 | 2:40 PM
  
Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price
 
In the category of saying the quiet parts out loud, consider this statement by Nirmal Mulye, the chief executive of drug company Nostrum Laboratories: “I think it is a moral requirement to make money when you can ... to sell the product for the highest price.”

Mulye was responding to questions posed by the Financial Times about his quadrupling the price of an essential antibiotic to $2,392 per bottle. The drug, nitrofurantoin, is used to treat urinary tract infections. It has been on the market since 1953 and is listed by the World Health Organization as an essential medicine for “basic healthcare systems.”

In his interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Mulye defended Martin Shkreli, the former drug company CEO who became the face of the industry’s profiteering in 2015 when he jacked up the price of a generic anti-parasitic drug needed by HIV patients by more than 5,000%. “I agree with Martin Shkreli that when he raised the price of his drug he was within his rights because he had to reward his shareholders,” Mulye told the FT. (Shkreli is currently serving a prison term on fraud charges unrelated to the price hike.)

This is a capitalist economy....We have to make money when we can.
 
Mulye’s remarks drew a rebuke from Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. “There’s no moral imperative to price gouge and take advantage of patients,” Gottlieb tweeted after the FT interview appeared. He said his agency would “continue to promote competition so speculators and those with no regard to public health consequences can’t take advantage of patients who need medicine.”

As it happens, Mulye also had taken aim at the FDA, which he called “incompetent and corrupt.”
We sought a comment from the Kansas City, Mo., headquarters of Nostrum Laboratories, but the company said no further comment would be forthcoming until Wednesday at the earliest.

Mulye’s remarks are unusual for a pharmaceutical company executive, most of whom have been keeping a low profile while high drug prices remain a topic of political debate. Those who have taken to a public stage typically have done so to announce price cuts, often in response to jawboning by President Trump — although those cuts have been largely symbolic.

Nostrum is one of only two current marketers in the U.S. of a liquid formulation of nitrofurantoin; Mulye said his firm increased its price in response to a similar hike by the other drug maker, Casper Pharma, which recently increased the price of its product, which it markets under the brand name Furadantin, to $2,800 a bottle.

“The point here is the only other choice is the brand at the higher price,” Mulye told the FT. He observed that even after Nostrum’s hike, its product is still cheaper than Casper’s: “It is still a saving regardless of whether it is a big one or not.”

Mulye said scarcity was the key factor in Nostrum’s ability to raise the price of its drug.
As the FT observed, supplies narrowed after the FDA implemented new rules this year tightening standards for impurities in brand-name and generic drugs. But nine firms, including Casper and Nostrum, hold active licenses from the FDA for manufacturing the drug, according to an agency database.

“This is a capitalist economy and if you can’t make money you can’t stay in business,” Mulye said. “We have to make money when we can. The price of iPhones goes up, the price of cars goes up, hotel rooms are very expensive.”

Gottlieb questioned Mulye’s intimation that nitrofurantoin was experiencing a shortage. The drug does not appear on a roster of drug scarcities maintained by the FDA, he said in a tweet. “According to FDA’s shortages database,” Gottlieb wrote, “the drug in question — which is a liquid formulation of a widely available, and old and less frequently used antibiotic — is also NOT in shortage.” He labeled Nostrum’s price “excessive” and “detached from market principles.”

Mulye’s remarks seem likely to turbocharge the debate over drug pricing in the U.S., where many formulations are sold at multiples of their prices in other countries. A bottle of nitrofurantoin “slightly larger” than that on U.S. shelves, the FT reported, can be purchased in Britain for the equivalent of $582, less than one-fourth Nostrum’s U.S. price.

Trump has tried to position himself as a foe of high pharmaceutical prices, but thus far healthcare experts say his policy prescriptions have fallen short of what’s needed.
Trump has boasted of goading big drug makers such as Pfizer and Merck into rolling back their most recent price increases, but for the most part the most high-profile rollbacks have been temporary or shot through with loopholes.



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9/12/2018, 5:26 pm Link to this post PM crogin
 
mais oui Profile
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


any one surprized? - you shouldnt be.

the SOLE purpose of a drug company is to maximise profit for its investors and one of the best ways of doing this is to charge eye wateringly high prices for your products.

Im not sure about "moral requirement" but it is pretty much legal one to work in the 'best interests of the company'

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9/12/2018, 6:21 pm Link to this post PM mais oui Blog
 
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


I'm not surprised but I also doubt that the drug company intends to get money for that drug from individual purchasers. It's a little expensive for most people to pay for it out of their pocket.

If they did intend to make the most profit from sales to individuals the price would be much lower.
9/12/2018, 7:25 pm Link to this post PM Philer Blog
 
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


I'm not surprised but I also doubt that the drug company intends to get money for that drug from individual purchasers. It's a little expensive for most people to pay for it out of their pocket.

If they did intend to make the most profit from sales to individuals the price would be much lower.

that makes no sense!

take epi pens sold in the UK to the NHS for $69 per pack of two exactly the same pens are sold in the US to individual users for $275 per pack of two

so why are they 4 times the price when sold to an individul that they are when sold to teh NHS?

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9/12/2018, 7:31 pm Link to this post PM mais oui Blog
 
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


quote:

mais oui wrote:

I'm not surprised but I also doubt that the drug company intends to get money for that drug from individual purchasers. It's a little expensive for most people to pay for it out of their pocket.

If they did intend to make the most profit from sales to individuals the price would be much lower.

that makes no sense!

take epi pens sold in the UK to the NHS for $69 per pack of two exactly the same pens are sold in the US to individual users for $275 per pack of two

so why are they 4 times the price when sold to an individul that they are when sold to teh NHS?



I suspect they are still counting on insurance companies and the government to pay those higher prices rather than individuals to pay for them out of pocket. Just because individuals purchase them that doesn't mean that they actually pay for them or pay for them with no help from the government or insurers.


9/12/2018, 7:39 pm Link to this post PM Philer Blog
 
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quote:

I suspect they are still counting on insurance companies and the government to pay those higher prices rather than individuals to pay for them out of pocket.



the NHS IS the government and they pay $69

A producer will charge as much (or as little ) as the market will bear, the NHS said hell no we arent paying $550 (I said earlier that they were $275 for two - its actually that much each)

These pens cost about $20 to make so even at the $35 the NHS pays the producer is still making a good profit

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9/12/2018, 8:08 pm Link to this post PM mais oui Blog
 
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


the medicine i take cost 5,000 a month, for MS.
my insurance pays 80% and i'm suppose to pay 20% but
the company that makes my medicine, pays the 20%
but, they send a check each month to my insurance so they can have a tax write off, as a charitable deduction.

Then, when the senate was calling CEO of drug companies and grilling them about price gouching. my medicine mysteriously dropped to 2,888.00 a month.

my insurance company still pays 80% and the maker of the medicine still send my insurance company a check for the other 20% so they can write it off as a charitable deductible

 i was appalled, when i learned all this, but i guess that's how
they do things the more money they get the more money they can spend on research to save lives., but they know all insurance company have 80% deductible, and they wouldn't sell any pills, if people had to pay 20% which was 1k and now almost 600.00 people would just do without the medicine.

so they decided to pay the 20% and get a tax write-off.

i'm sure they do that to all medicines, that are expensive.

Last edited by snowpixie, 9/13/2018, 10:17 am
9/13/2018, 10:11 am Link to this post PM snowpixie Blog
 
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


quote:

they get the more money they can spend on research to save lives.




they get the more money they can pay their investors and executives

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9/13/2018, 10:32 am Link to this post PM mais oui Blog
 
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


of course, but they also use the money for research, otherwise they wouldn't be in business very long without new pills to push.
9/13/2018, 12:02 pm Link to this post PM snowpixie Blog
 
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Re: Drug executive: It's a 'moral requirement' to charge patients the highest price


Many of those who manufacture medication dont spend a cent on research.

Martin Shkreli bought the rights to produce Daraprim and instantly raised the price from $13.50 to $750 (and that wasnt to cover research or development costs either)

and

 the prices of 14 cancer drugs have increased by between 100% and nearly 1,000% over the past five years . These are all generic drugs where the patent has expired, which means they can be made for little more than the cost of the raw ingredients

the price of melphalan in the UK went up from 55p for 2mg in 2011 to £1.82 in 2016, a rise of 230%.


The cost of busulfan for chronic myeloid leukaemia to the NHS rose from 21p for 2mg in 2011 to £2.61 in 2016, an increase of 1,143%

Again these are out of patent generic formulations which should be dirt cheap


edit

the above are prices in the UK charged to the NHS and are for illustration only the prices may not apply to other places

Last edited by mais oui, 9/13/2018, 1:13 pm


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