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)

RE: Maker of Heart Drug Intended for Blacks Bases Price on Patients' Wealth