Is there any limit to the greed of pharmaceutical companies?

[Lionel Mandrake]

The following story from the LA Times shows some consequences of our ridiculous drug prices. Only in America does the government encourage this abuse. For a private citizen, printing money is called counterfeiting and is prosecuted by the feds, but big pharma practically has a license to print money.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-20150621-column.html#page=1

[hifiguy]

1. Short answer - NO.

It is the nature of predatory, rapacious, unregulated capitalists to be greedy, predatory and rapacious. Just like the scorpion in the fable, they can be nothing else.

[-none]

2. Blame the revolving door between the privacy sector and government agency heads.

Someone needs to lock the doors, so that stops happening.

[Lionel Mandrake]

6. I tend to blame our Congress

which has been bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists, including those sent by big pharma.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. IMO, this is a great issue for Bernie, who alone

among Prez candidates does not rely on wink-nod corporate payoffs.

[-none]

10. True, They enable the revolving door because they profit from it.

No way will they cut their own bribery side income.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. Did you see 60 Minutes this evening?

The oncologists at MSK hospital in NYC rebelled against a Sanofi drug's price by boycotting it and writing a NYT op-ed. So the company cut hospitals in on some of the $11 k a month per patient action!

[hifiguy]

4. Bribery and corruption.

They are not bugs in the system, they are baked-in features.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. Another story in that same 60 Minutes segment

was about how drug companies bring prices of older competing drugs up to the levels of new drugs. The price of Gleevec, which unlike most cancer meds, extends life for years rather than just weeks, tripled in about a decade, to $92k a year.

[redstateblues]

13. Big Pharma writes the laws that let them

And the doctors put the screws to people with cancer. Unbelievable!

[djean111]

5. Nope. And the TTP and other "trade" agreements will make things even worse.

Even worse for those poor Vietnamese farmers, too - I believe countries will be given their formularies by Big Pharma, and will not be able to negotiate. Like I said elsewhere, the intent is not to lower American salaries and standard of living and raise up the poorer countries - the intent is to lower the American salaries and standard of living. Period. And line corporate pockets.

[rock]

8. My conception of greed has no limits

So no.

[IcyPeas]

11. NPR had a story on this a while ago re: MS Drugs

Look at this quote - it's outrageous:

Drug companies are acting much like a cartel such as OPEC, says Stephen Schondelmeyer, a pharmaceutical economist at the University of Minnesota. He says the companies must figure "if we all keep moving [our prices] up and nobody moves down, we can get away with raising the price, because if a person has multiple sclerosis, what other choice do they have?"

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/05/25/408021704/multiple-sclerosis-patients-stressed-out-by-soaring-drug-costs

[Logical]

12. Take the profit away from drugs and you have no more new drugs! Nt

[msongs]

14. take the obscene profits aways from corporate gougers and you have more healty people AND

drug companies that make money

[Logical]

15. Let's just shut them all down! Problem solved! Nt

[WinkyDink]

16. You can omit the word "pharmaceutical" and make the same rhetorical point.

[blue neen]

17. Big Pharma just may be the biggest racket going in this country...

and there are plenty to choose from.

[Lionel Mandrake]

18. I agree.

Medicare part D is a gift to big pharma and to giant insurance companies. When he was Senate Majority leader, Trent Lot was adamant that Medicare not be allowed to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers, and he got his way. The result: drug companies can charge whatever the traffic will bear. No other nation has such a disgraceful policy on drug prices. Nowhere else are drugs as expensive as in the USA.

When a drug patent expires and a generic version threatens to come on the market, the manufacturer of the name brand sometimes pays the other company NOT to sell the generic, or to delay doing so. Where is the FTC when such a blatant conspiracy in restraint of trade is being perpetrated? Their silence is deafening.

Why does our government do whatever will maximize the profits of big pharma? Could it be because of contributions from big pharma to friendly politicians running for office?

[blue neen]

19. Your guess is as good as mine.

Also, it's interesting that sometimes Big Pharma seems to fight with Big Insurance, and other times they're colluding with them. Whatever works out to their advantage, apparently.