EpiPen costs skyrocket; 500% increase (1 Viewer)

[James Daulton]

You said it never would have been invented without the free market.  Plenty of #### gets invented outside the free market.  That was my point.

 

[sublimeone]

You said it never would have been invented without the free market.  Plenty of #### gets invented outside the free market.  That was my point.

Oh OK. Well it was invented in a free market, not in a communist country.

And just so you know, way more '####' is invented and innovated in free market, capitalist systems.

 

[renesauz]

So you are saying one dose doesn't fit all?  

Emergency drugs (like in a code) are usually in pre-filled syringes. Generally speaking, you don't want to rely on anyone to remember dosages. I routinely administer at least 200 different drugs, and you can add at least another 4 or 500 I've done on a far less frequent basis. I'll remember code drug dosages because I'm an ICU nurse and routinely run codes, but I wouldn't expect a nurse in a doctors office to remember them because they might see one code during their entire career. Not to mention the fact that the nurse might not be available.

As I've said, the advantages of a product like eppipen over vial and syringe in an emergency situation are vast and indisputable. So much so, that even if the production cost WERE several hundred dollars vs. 3 or 4 dollars, it would STILL be worth having the eppipen. But it doesn't cost several hundred to produce, and thus it's extraordinarily immoral for the drug company to charge that. We have laws against such things during natural disasters.

 

[renesauz]

Oh OK. Well it was invented in a free market, not in a communist country.

And just so you know, way more '####' is invented and innovated in free market, capitalist systems.

Funny, as I could have sworn I read that eppipen was developed with taxpayer dollars.

 

[msommer]

It's definitely corporate greed... But without the free market the EpiPen never would have been created in the first place. Isn't it better that we all have the ability to purchase an over-priced EpiPen vs not being able to purchase it at all because it was never invented?

Apparently there are about eight competing brands in Europe, saving European lives at a fraction of the EpiPen cost in the US. Isn't it great that you can't buy them?

 

[sublimeone]

Apparently there are about eight competing brands in Europe, saving European lives at a fraction of the EpiPen cost in the US. Isn't it great that you can't buy them?

Guys, I was just responding to someone who posted 'Free Markets!!!' -- as if free markets were the problem and completely ignoring the fact that this technology was developed by a private company in a free market.

 

[msommer]

Guys, I was just responding to someone who posted 'Free Markets!!!' -- as if free markets were the problem and completely ignoring the fact that this technology was developed by a private company in a free market.

Apparently the market isn't free. HTH

 

[parasaurolophus]

You're being an ### here, as I said nothing of the sort. If a drug costs 3 bucks to make, and the R and D is already recovered (taxpayers paid the R and D for EpPIPEN), it's price gouging to then sell the product for hundreds of dollars. Demanding a reasonable price <> demanding surrender of intellectual property rights.

Drug companies are gouging the American people. They are spending billions more on advertising and lobbying than they are on R and D. Much of the cost of R and D is being subsidized by the government and/or medical schools already, and is DRAMATICALLY overstated by the drug lobby.

You want the government to set freaking price levels based on profit margins and I am the ###? Demanding the government strip a company of its patent because you think they charge too much money is exactly the same as scoffing at IP rights and destroying what they stand for. You don't get to pick and choose when it is ok. 

You can't rave about a technology and how necessary it is and then also say you want the government to take control of the pricing for it. How much does it cost apple to make an iphone? Microsoft to sell a CD that has an OS on it? What is the real cost for a fountain soda at 7-11? For Sony to sell a DVD? I mean these things all have insanely high gross margins. Shouldn't the government step in? I mean after all, the R and D is now sunk. 

EPIPEN!!!! NEED MY EPIPEN!!!! NEED MY IPHONE!!!! oh yeah. and I want it cheap. GOVERNMENT!!! help me. Obamaphone, obamaepi!

These companies spend money on advertising because it works. This product is the perfect example. So many people in this thread are convinced the epipen is the only option or all these children will be dying at schools everyday. Then these people complain about the money spent on advertising and the prices they are paying. It is pretty funny. 

 

[parasaurolophus]

Be careful Parasaupholous doesn't look up your school district rules and try to correct you. 

The resistance in here by certain people who have little actual knowledge with this subject has been absurd. 

You have proven to be the most ill informed of the bunch. I actually think you are lying about your daughter having any allergies to begin with. Just another discussion you wanted to lie about having a tie to. 

 

[cstu]

You want the government to set freaking price levels based on profit margins and I am the ###? Demanding the government strip a company of its patent because you think they charge too much money is exactly the same as scoffing at IP rights and destroying what they stand for. You don't get to pick and choose when it is ok. 

You can't rave about a technology and how necessary it is and then also say you want the government to take control of the pricing for it.

Who is raving about Epipen 'technology'?

The first epinephrine dispensers were originally patented in 1973, having borrowed substantially from technology developed in the 1960s. Since patents were never intended to last forty years, companies like Meridian, who in turn licensed the patent to Mylan, have engaged in a process known as “evergreening” to maintain their exclusive control of the device. Essentially, a company makes small, marginal changes to an existing design, and uses these changes to justify an extension of the patent, even though no true innovation has occurred. It’s a nakedly cronyist practice that allows big companies to legally exclude competition long after their patents should have expired. - See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/08/is-the-us-patent-office-to-blame-for-the-epipen-price-hike#sthash.wYd6jV0J.dpuf

 

[parasaurolophus]

Lets revisit the advertising...

Mylan was able to buy the epipen in 2007 because it wasn't profitable. Less than 100 food allergy deaths a year back then.

Today, less than 100 food allergy deaths per year and they are raking it in. Sounds to me like they have preyed on fears rather than actual dangers pretty well. 

 

[msommer]

Lets revisit the advertising...

Mylan was able to buy the epipen in 2007 because it wasn't profitable. Less than 100 food allergy deaths a year back then.

Today, less than 100 food allergy deaths per year and they are raking it in. Sounds to me like they have preyed on fears rather than actual dangers pretty well. 

So, let's enable them to fearmonger more?

Or

Let real competition enter the markets in a way that beneifts the end user?

 

[cstu]

Lets revisit the advertising...

Mylan was able to buy the epipen in 2007 because it wasn't profitable. Less than 100 food allergy deaths a year back then.

Today, less than 100 food allergy deaths per year and they are raking it in. Sounds to me like they have preyed on fears rather than actual dangers pretty well. 

Wasn't profitable?  They paid $6.6 billion for the generics unit and this article says the margin for Epipens was 9% in 2008.  It's mind-numbing that that a company couldn't make a profit on a product with $200 million in sales that only cost $10 to make that they were selling for $50 back in 2007. 

 

[renesauz]

You want the government to set freaking price levels based on profit margins and I am the ###? Demanding the government strip a company of its patent because you think they charge too much money is exactly the same as scoffing at IP rights and destroying what they stand for. You don't get to pick and choose when it is ok. You can't rave about a technology and how necessary it is and then also say you want the government to take control of the pricing for it. How much does it cost apple to make an iphone? Microsoft to sell a CD that has an OS on it? What is the real cost for a fountain soda at 7-11? For Sony to sell a DVD? I mean these things all have insanely high gross margins. Shouldn't the government step in? I mean after all, the R and D is now sunk. EPIPEN!!!! NEED MY EPIPEN!!!! NEED MY IPHONE!!!! oh yeah. and I want it cheap. GOVERNMENT!!! help me. Obamaphone, obamaepi! These companies spend money on advertising because it works. This product is the perfect example. So many people in this thread are convinced the epipen is the only option or all these children will be dying at schools everyday. Then these people complain about the money spent on advertising and the prices they are paying. It is pretty funny.  

Government sets the profit margins for utilities. NOBODY said anything about stripping their patent, nor that they shouldn't make a reasonable profit. The problem is that they are OBVIOUSLY making a ridiculous profit now, in a market that is NOT free.

Either make the market completely free, or price control it. What we have now is neither. The bigger problem is that health care is not, nor could it EVER be a completely free market. It is NOT A LUXURY, therefore the free market can never effectively take care of it. And I get angry at the suggestion that it can.