In a report to investors on Tuesday, Mr. Moskowitz noted that a NitroMed statement last Friday announcing the $1.80-a-pill price was released in concert with a statement endorsing the company's prescription assistance program from a Washington-based organization called the National Minority Health Month Foundation Minority Coalition for Prescription Drug Assistance.

Seems asinine to develop a pill for which fully 10% of the target consumers cannot afford. And then, in recognition of this fact, to make a complicated pricing system by which some people have to pay the full price and others nothing at all. I'd be interested to see the specifics of what determines who pays. I agree with the graduated pricing structure for drugs, but in the end it only serves to reinforce the overarching top-level problem that drugs are too expensive to begin with.

On another note...the NMHMFMCPDA?! That's just too damn many letters!

-janelane, conscientiously

janelane wrote:
Seems asinine to develop a pill for which fully 10% of the target consumers cannot afford. And then, in recognition of this fact, to make a complicated pricing system by which some people have to pay the full price and others nothing at all. I'd be interested to see the specifics of what determines who pays. I agree with the graduated pricing structure for drugs, but in the end it only serves to reinforce the overarching top-level problem that drugs are too expensive to begin with.

Drugs really are fantastically expensive (~$1B) to develop and test. Companies must be incented to make this investment. For better or worse, our government is in the business of redistributing wealth and as such, it makes a certain degree of sense that in situations like this where what you're really paying for is an intangible, i.e. patent license, the rich are made to subsidize the poor.

bucy wrote:

janelane wrote:
Seems asinine to develop a pill for which fully 10% of the target consumers cannot afford. And then, in recognition of this fact, to make a complicated pricing system by which some people have to pay the full price and others nothing at all. I'd be interested to see the specifics of what determines who pays. I agree with the graduated pricing structure for drugs, but in the end it only serves to reinforce the overarching top-level problem that drugs are too expensive to begin with.

Drugs really are fantastically expensive (~$1B) to develop and test. Companies must be incented to make this investment. For better or worse, our government is in the business of redistributing wealth and as such, it makes a certain degree of sense that in situations like this where what you're really paying for is an intangible, i.e. patent license, the rich are made to subsidize the poor.

While drugs may be expensive to develop, in this specific case, it doesn't apply. At all. The drug here is a combination of two drugs that are now both in the generic listing. The combination is based on a study done years ago where they tried out the combo and it didn't work. As it turns out, it does work, but that was only after massging the numbers where it was found it DID work for a small subgroup (which is why there is now a heart drug for blacks as opposed to just a general heart drug).

There is nothing new here at all other than the fact that the two drugs were combined.

Want to make your own Excedrin? Take one aspirin, one tylenol and wash it down with a shot of espresso. Same concept. (I love NPR)

While drugs may be expensive to develop, in this specific case, it doesn't apply. At all. The drug here is a combination of two drugs that are now both in the generic listing. The combination is based on a study done years ago where they tried out the combo and it didn't work. As it turns out, it does work, but that was only after massging the numbers where it was found it DID work for a small subgroup (which is why there is now a heart drug for blacks as opposed to just a general heart drug).

There is nothing new here at all other than the fact that the two drugs were combined.

Want to make your own Excedrin? Take one aspirin, one tylenol and wash it down with a shot of espresso. Same concept. (I love NPR)

That may be true in this case, however one has to remember that the successful drugs need to pay for the successful research as well as the unsuccessful research.

If you want to do something like regulate prices or reduce patent lengths, the effect of this is to simply reduce the risk drug companies will take on (ie: they will pursue things like this or other things where there may not be a huge payout, but the probabilities of success are very very very high).

bmitchell wrote:

While drugs may be expensive to develop, in this specific case, it doesn't apply. At all. The drug here is a combination of two drugs that are now both in the generic listing. The combination is based on a study done years ago where they tried out the combo and it didn't work. As it turns out, it does work, but that was only after massging the numbers where it was found it DID work for a small subgroup (which is why there is now a heart drug for blacks as opposed to just a general heart drug).

There is nothing new here at all other than the fact that the two drugs were combined.

Want to make your own Excedrin? Take one aspirin, one tylenol and wash it down with a shot of espresso. Same concept. (I love NPR)

That may be true in this case, however one has to remember that the successful drugs need to pay for the successful research as well as the unsuccessful research.

If you want to do something like regulate prices or reduce patent lengths, the effect of this is to simply reduce the risk drug companies will take on (ie: they will pursue things like this or other things where there may not be a huge payout, but the probabilities of success are very very very high).

And now to throw a little more fuel on the fire, in the last decade, drug companies have changed one additional factor. Advertising for prescription drugs now exceeds reseach spending by more than an order of magnitude. So when Lilly spends a hundred million on a drug, they're spending over a BILLION on advertising.

Inventing a new drug may be expensive, but lets get real here. There's a reason pharma has been the darling on Wall Street for the last few years, and it's because they're routinely clearing bigger profits than anyone but big oil and Microsoft.

The only things I can think of that have gone up in price more than prescription drugs is a University education and oil since the invasion of Iraq.

Mike the Usurper wrote:

And now to throw a little more fuel on the fire, in the last decade, drug companies have changed one additional factor. Advertising for prescription drugs now exceeds reseach spending by more than an order of magnitude. So when Lilly spends a hundred million on a drug, they're spending over a BILLION on advertising.

Inventing a new drug may be expensive, but lets get real here. There's a reason pharma has been the darling on Wall Street for the last few years, and it's because they're routinely clearing bigger profits than anyone but big oil and Microsoft.

The only things I can think of that have gone up in price more than prescription drugs is a University education and oil since the invasion of Iraq.

Yes, and for each one of the big pharma companies, there are 100 failed biotech companies, many of which never even reach stage 1 trials.