Pharmco PIGS price point

PrintSmith wrote: for the sake of argment, let us presume that those figures are accurate - typically. Now let's talk specifically about this one, shall we? What did it cost to ressearch? What was it's cost to submit to the FDA trials? What does each batch cost to synthesize, package, quality control, distribute, test for purity and safety? What does it cost the company to insure themselve against the future lawsuits? What did it cost them as far as captial investments for the manufacturing facility to produce this specific drug?

Unless those questions can be answered, it is bit premature to make the presumptions you have made, isn't it? I mean, I know that the Rules for Radicals outlines the mehods being employed here, and that the ends justify any means, but don't you think there's a saturation point at which people tire of hearing such wild speculations soley for political reasons? We all know there's an election coming up that the party of Democrats are rightly very worried about, but don't you think it a tad early to start the scorched earth part of the campaign?

Yet once again Printsmith has to resort to his pedantic smears rather than present a single fact to back up his out of touch assertions. A recent study by researchers in the UK found that the cost of producing similar pharmaceuticals were in the range of $100 - $150 per 12 week treatment as compared to the $84,000 price tag for a course of Solvadi treatment.
But Andrew Hill, a researcher in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Liverpool, says $84,000 per cure is too much, based on his estimate of Gilead's cost to produce the drug. "Even when we were very conservative [with our estimate], the cost of a course of these treatments would be on the order of $150 to $250 per person," Hill says. He questions whether the $84,000 price tag represents "a fair profit. "Hill estimated the cost of producing Sovaldi by comparing it to similar antiviral drugs used to treat HIV, which cost about a $1 per gram to make. "The amazing thing with hep C is you only need a few grams of these drugs to cure the infection," Hill says. "You need 10 grams or 30 grams of drugs."


The COO of Gilead, who refused to divulge the cost of R & D for Solvadi, stated that the pricing was based on comparing the price of the Solvadi treatment to the cost of liver replacement of $300,000.

"When you talk to them about the long-term benefits, they recognize they're not going to have to worry as much about liver transplants and other care they're going to have to give," Milligan told Bloomberg. A new liver costs about $300,000 in the U.S., and that's before factoring in the price of drugs to make a transplant work. "For most of these plans, the risk/benefit seems to be positive, based on our conversations."

Read more: Gilead says payers feel comfortable with the cost of Sovaldi - FiercePharma http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/gilea ... z2wnXuwBgA

Congress has requested Gilead to provide information to justify their pricing but Gilead has refused so far to provide any such information.

Further, Gilead is selling this drug for about $10.00 per pill outside the US.

So let see if Printsmith is able to provide any facts, or if he continues to use pedantic smears as usual.

Two words....PHARMCO PIGS :Hammer:

Doing some research into your claim yields that the $10 per pill price was struck with Doctors Without Borders as a humanitarian gesture. Nowhere, however, does it say that Gilead isn't taking a loss on each and every pill sold at that price, which it certainly might be willing to do as a humanitarian gesture. And if that is so, then it also follows that the lost revenue to conduct that humanitarian mission has to be made up elsewhere. Nothing, after all, is free in this life. Someone has to pay for the costs associated with not only the costs to produce this marketable drug, but also cover the costs to research the drugs which fail to make it to market for one reason or another. What do you suppose the total investment in finding a cure for hep C to be by Gilead? How many experiments failed to produce results and what was their cost to the company?

Also, what are the terms and conditions of the agreement reached with Doctors without Borders? One can purchase a brand new smart phone for $25 in exchange for a 2 year contract or $600 for the same phone without a contract. Might there be more to the story than is being reported currently? Given the current administrations track record, might there have been an incentive for Gilead to enter into this agreement in exchange for something from the administration? That is, after all, how they got the insurance companies on board for the (un)Affordable Care Act, isn't it? By promising them a bailout if they lost money initially and by promising that they would be selling more policies, many of them subsidized with US taxpayer money, if they played ball with the administration?

You also failed to note that the $1000 per pill is actually a drug cocktail which makes the use of interferon as part of the treatment regine unnecessary as opposed to simply a pill containing Solvadi alone which requires that interferon be part of the drug therapy. A quick perusal of the cost of interferon treatments results in a cost of $12-$20K for the interferon alone for the 24 week treatment period.

You also fail to note that the $84K cost of teatment is less than 30% of the cost of a liver transplant and that it will all but negate the need for the majority of hep C patients to undergo such an expensive treatment, saving billions of dollars in care costs and saving millions of lives because sufferes of hep C will no longer need to depend on transplants to save their lives or die waiting for a suitable transplant for them.

If it is deemed acceptable to raise the cost of insurance to subsidize the cost of insuring those who can't afford to purchase it, why would it be unacceptable to raise the cost of a drug in one market to subsidize the cost of offering it in other markets who couldn't even begin to afford the cost if the company were required to sell their product at the same price in all markets? I mean, really, even health insurance does this. A person in Denver can purchase insurance for a lot less than the same person could purchase the same exchange policy in Aspen. Why is that acceptable and this is not? Under your scenario shouldn't every person in the Union be able to purchase the same plan for the same price regardless of where they live? Shouldn't seeing a doctor in NYC cost the same as seeing one in Bailey? Or a virtual colonoscopy cost the same as a traditional one even though the virtual one catches more cancers and is much easier on the patient which makes it possible to do more of them in a day and reduce the costs of treating colon cancers because the cancer is caught sooner?

Why does a Tesla cost more than a Leaf? Should we be railing against the makers of the Tesla because their product costs so much more than others which accomplish the same task?

I KNOW you like to play devil's advocate, but in THIS case.....the kool-aid you are drinking is
detrimental to ALL.....drug advertising COST and TV spots are NOT inexpensive.....WHO do you
think pays for those "ask your doctor about"....? When you walk into your doctors office and
REQUEST a drug you have seen on TV,WHO is reaping the reward ....YOU?.....(NOT)....it's
pretty simple...pharmco has a vested interest in making SURE their product is on your mind.

...but what if the product they advertise really helps you out? My wife found out about Lyrica from TV ads and it been the only pain medication that worked for her that she could continue to work on.

HA? You want to advocate companies not being allowed to advertise these wonder drugs? And a clue about manufacturing, the more people on a drug, the less it costs to produce. And the more likely the drug will be available.

homeagain wrote: I KNOW you like to play devil's advocate, but in THIS case.....the kool-aid you are drinking is
detrimental to ALL.....drug advertising COST and TV spots are NOT inexpensive.....WHO do you
think pays for those "ask your doctor about"....? When you walk into your doctors office and
REQUEST a drug you have seen on TV,WHO is reaping the reward ....YOU?.....(NOT)....it's
pretty simple...pharmco has a vested interest in making SURE their product is on your mind.

Maybe PS already pointed this out and I missed it, but have you considered the fact that anyone can sue a drug company for side effects of that drug whether or not that drug was directly responsible for the side effect? There are as many commercials from ambulance chasers fishing for people who think they have been damaged by a drug... a drug that may have helped many more than have been hurt. The is a massive cost to these lawsuits and these present and future costs must be calculated (something gov't doesn't understand).
Doctors face these same lawsuits that may or may not be valid.

If you look at one of the reasons why Canadian drugs are cheaper, you'll see that Canadians are less encouraged to sue and pharma companies have less liability costs compared to US counterparts.

BETTER LIVING THRU CHEMISTRY.....is NOT the answer...."more people on drugs", the cheaper
they become.....have you ACTUALLY examined that statement "more people on drugs....?"

homeagain wrote: BETTER LIVING THRU CHEMISTRY.....is NOT the answer...."more people on drugs", the cheaper
they become.....have you ACTUALLY examined that statement "more people on drugs....?"

Well in my case, I am alive today only because of some very expensive drugs. I suppose I could have listened to my sister who wanted me to not do chemo and opt for natural supplements which she assured me would work (based on internet stories), but I chose man made chemicals recommended by my doctor. What choice would you have made?

Rick, I HAVE always given a caveat (perhaps it was on another thread)....YES there are circumstances/physical aliments like cancer that require drug treatment and THOSE instances are
NOT what I am railing against....it's "the little purple pill" for acid reflux, it's the Abien for sleep
aid, it's the on going battery of "better living thru chemistry" bull sh** that has created a monster
and has made the masses believe that "if I only take a pill EVERYTHING will be better".....

I would add, that if I had cancer I would NOT opt for the basic "one size fits all" chemo/radiation
treatment....but RATHER I would expect a more targeted,genome based view, one which would
hopefully MITIGATE the negative effects of the treatment.....(my understanding)....personalized
medicine is in it's infancy but it is STILL more preferable....JMO

PrintSmith wrote: Doing some research into your claim yields that the $10 per pill price was struck with Doctors Without Borders as a humanitarian gesture. Nowhere, however, does it say that Gilead isn't taking a loss on each and every pill sold at that price, which it certainly might be willing to do as a humanitarian gesture. And if that is so, then it also follows that the lost revenue to conduct that humanitarian mission has to be made up elsewhere. Nothing, after all, is free in this life. Someone has to pay for the costs associated with not only the costs to produce this marketable drug, but also cover the costs to research the drugs which fail to make it to market for one reason or another. What do you suppose the total investment in finding a cure for hep C to be by Gilead? How many experiments failed to produce results and what was their cost to the company?

Also, what are the terms and conditions of the agreement reached with Doctors without Borders? One can purchase a brand new smart phone for $25 in exchange for a 2 year contract or $600 for the same phone without a contract. Might there be more to the story than is being reported currently? Given the current administrations track record, might there have been an incentive for Gilead to enter into this agreement in exchange for something from the administration? That is, after all, how they got the insurance companies on board for the (un)Affordable Care Act, isn't it? By promising them a bailout if they lost money initially and by promising that they would be selling more policies, many of them subsidized with US taxpayer money, if they played ball with the administration?

You also failed to note that the $1000 per pill is actually a drug cocktail which makes the use of interferon as part of the treatment regine unnecessary as opposed to simply a pill containing Solvadi alone which requires that interferon be part of the drug therapy. A quick perusal of the cost of interferon treatments results in a cost of $12-$20K for the interferon alone for the 24 week treatment period.

You also fail to note that the $84K cost of teatment is less than 30% of the cost of a liver transplant and that it will all but negate the need for the majority of hep C patients to undergo such an expensive treatment, saving billions of dollars in care costs and saving millions of lives because sufferes of hep C will no longer need to depend on transplants to save their lives or die waiting for a suitable transplant for them.

If it is deemed acceptable to raise the cost of insurance to subsidize the cost of insuring those who can't afford to purchase it, why would it be unacceptable to raise the cost of a drug in one market to subsidize the cost of offering it in other markets who couldn't even begin to afford the cost if the company were required to sell their product at the same price in all markets? I mean, really, even health insurance does this. A person in Denver can purchase insurance for a lot less than the same person could purchase the same exchange policy in Aspen. Why is that acceptable and this is not? Under your scenario shouldn't every person in the Union be able to purchase the same plan for the same price regardless of where they live? Shouldn't seeing a doctor in NYC cost the same as seeing one in Bailey? Or a virtual colonoscopy cost the same as a traditional one even though the virtual one catches more cancers and is much easier on the patient which makes it possible to do more of them in a day and reduce the costs of treating colon cancers because the cancer is caught sooner?

Why does a Tesla cost more than a Leaf? Should we be railing against the makers of the Tesla because their product costs so much more than others which accomplish the same task?

So as I predicted, not a single fact, just more pedantic smearing. You seem to ignore the fact that Gilead is pricing their treatment by comparing it as a "cost-saving" compared to liver transplants. You seem to ignore the fact that researchers have determined that the cost for developing comparable pharmaceuticals was in the range of $100 -$250 compared to the $84,000 Gilead treatment. You are simply trying to divert from you inability to provide any facts that would support your allegations that the $1000 per pill is based on the actual cost of the treatment development rather than the well established fact that pharmaceutical companies charge on what the market will bear, not on the actual cost of the drug. You totally ignore the facts on such drugs as Lipitor where Pfizer had 90% profit margins.

You have failed to provide a single fact that supports your allegations that the price of the drug is solely based on the cost of development of the drug. Just more pedantic smears.