
Martin Shkreli: Controversial 'pharma bro' refuses to testify over HIV drug - testrun
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-05/ex-drug-executive-martin-shkreli-fifth-amendment-us-congress/7142232
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coreyp_1
First, IANAL.

Second, I don't understand how raising the price can be illegal. If the
company owns the product, then they should be able to set its price. Even if
it makes people mad, or even if people die, his company has been granted
ownership of this drug, and therefore should be able to set the price as they
see fit. (I'm not arguing that this is a good thing. I think he is a horrible
person. I'm just trying to objectively consider the legal side as I understand
it.)

Third, this is not an example of the failure of capitalism. Pure capitalism
would allow other companies to provide the same product, and competition and
the free market would determine the price. If anything, this is an exacerbated
example of government-sanctioned monopolies of specific products, as provided
under patent law. (I'm trying to determine a better word to describe it...
perhaps fascism?)

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dalke
A pharmaceutical company has to work within a set of laws that limit what it
can sell. These were developed in large part because "pure capitalism" didn't
work for most cases of drug development. The elixir sulfanilamide poisoning
crisis is quite instructive, as is the history of snake oil, quack medicine,
and radium cure-alls.

These regulations mean pharmaceutical development is far from being a free
market.

Some drugs, like colchicine and progesterone, were developed decades ago. The
FDA would like them to be analyzed under the latest regulations, and is
willing to grant market exclusivity as a way to entice companies to do this.

A generic producer must also prove that their formulation is identical to the
formulation which was granted FDA approval. Turing used a closed distribution
model, where only patients could get access to the drugs, not potential
competitors.

As such, the companies did not "own the product", as you suggest. Not even the
pseudo-ownership of controlling a limited patent monopoly.

You can interpret this a lousy decisions by the FDA that have nothing to do
with capitalism. Which is correct. But the FDA itself was put in place for two
reasons: 1) pure capitalism has a track record of failing in this area, and 2)
traditionally the companies in this field knew to be greedy but not too
greedy, so the rules weren't set up for 'horrible' rule-lawyers. Because if
they were too greedy, the lawmakers could and will change the laws again.

So no, it's not illegal. But since the profits are made inside a highly
regulated marketplace, it's best to not piss off the people who decide the
regulations.

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bobby_9x
"The American people are fed up with the blatant profiteering of
pharmaceutical company CEOs like Martin Shkreli. It must end."

The real problem is all of the regulations you need to go through with the FDA
to get a drug approved. If it didn't take millions of thousands of dollars and
a team of lawyers to get drugs approved in 10 years, the free market would
force the hand of these companies and everyone's costs would decrease.

The government is equally greedy and more greed will not fix the problem.

In fact, most countries have cheaper drug costs because of the R&D that is
done in the US. Preventing profit (like what Sanders will inevitably do with
his health care plans) will be pretty bad for important drugs worldwide.

~~~
dalke
Your comment isn't all that relevant as Turing did NOT spend 'millions of
thousands of dollars and a team of lawyers to get drugs approved'. Daraprim is
a generic which had been available for over 60 years.

There were no R&D costs in this case.

Instead, Turing was the sole provider of Daraprim. It switched to a closed
distribution model so other generic manufacturers couldn't show equivalence,
which is needed for FDA approval, then jacked up the price.

At least, that's my understanding. In any case, it's far from what you suggest
is the case.

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MrTonyD
It's routine for riders to be put on bills to benefit the rich or big business
- I'd like to see a rider to make a law to throw this guy in jail and take his
money. Our society is supposed to serve our community - and this fellow has
proven his disdain for our community values. Some claim that he is doing
nothing illegal - well, we should change that - it should be illegal to act
against our society.

~~~
dragonwriter
What you suggest is a bill of attainder, and is expressly prohibited by the
Constitution, for very good reasons.

~~~
MrTonyD
It's fine to quote theory, but there are plenty of examples of laws passed
which apply to a single person or small group. My impression is that they are
written in such a way as to make them seem to apply to a general case - which
just happens to only apply to one person.

~~~
dragonwriter
Laws that practically apply to a small group or single person are not
unconstitutional as a class, even in theory. So the practice you point to.is
irrelevant.

Laws which declare a particular person a criminal and/or impose criminal
penalties like fines or imprisonment on them, OTOH, are unconstitutional, and
that's not just theory that is neglected in practice.

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MrTonyD
You say: "Laws that practically apply to a small group or single person are
not unconstitutional as a class" \- but isn't that exactly what would be
needed to define the actions of this scumbag as illegal and punishable by
fines and imprisonment? This doesn't seem irrelevant to me.

I've read some of the laws protecting billionaires. And they can be very
specific, applying only to people who live in a particular town and who have
entered specific agreements. So, if we can use these laws to absolve the rich,
we should be able to use them to define criminals against our society.

~~~
dllthomas
You could ban the things he's done, and throw him in jail if he does them
again. You can't throw him in jail based on new laws for things he's already
done (post-hoc law), or based merely on who he is (bill of attainder).

