
Executive fired after opposing 5,000% drug price hike - HarryHirsch
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/03/17/executive-fired-after-opposing-5000-drug-price-hike/81917308/
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DrScump
I'm surprised that nobody here pointed out that this was another Martin
Shkreli case, nor did USAT in its title choice.

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mtgx
If you didn't have government-given monopolies that lasted 20 years and you
allowed competition to come in from outside the country as well, this wouldn't
happen.

Trying to regulate every single drug's price is a fool's errand. Maybe you can
stop these "5,000% hikes", but what about the 300% ones? The 80% ones? That
happen simply because there's no competition.

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maxerickson
daraprim is not under a patent. The market for it is small and there was no
FDA approved competitor, but there is no insurmountable barrier to entering
the market for it.

I guess it might be the case that FDA red tape was keeping other entrants from
bothering with an alternative, I don't really understand the complaints about
their generic approvals process well enough to have an opinion.

The US Federal government could probably go further than fixing any regulatory
hurdles and set up a program to incentivize/ensure production of drugs
(especially inexpensive ones) that are valuable for small numbers of people.
Such money would surely be well spent in comparison to many existing programs.

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HarryHirsch
The thing is: the "FDA red tape" is justified but expensive, and the market is
so small that it takes a long time to recover the initial outlays. One thing
that could be done is subsidies for FDA-related expenses for orphan drugs.

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maxerickson
If it is justified it isn't red tape.

