Not to be an apologist for crappy pharma behavior, but some of the accusations don't seem that egregious.
"An internal slide presented to the company’s drug pricing advisory board showed that the increase would yield $24 million in new net sales."
What kind of company doesn't run revenue estimates for price increases? If you suggest a price increase, the first thing a CEO will ask is "how much extra revenue is that?"
"Teva only spent $689 million on Copaxone-related research since 1987 — just 2% of the roughly $34 billion it took in net revenue for the drug over the last two decades"
Usually drug sales today, pay for other R&D programs. What was Teva's total R&D spending across their entire portfolio over that time? My rough estimate is >$10B or >1/3 of what they made on Revlimid.[1]
"Teva launched a new, more potent version of copaxone as part of what they dubbed a coordinated “generic defense strategy.” The strategy, according to internal powerpoints, included contracting with middlemen to block generics’ market access and aggressive campaigns to lobby both doctors and patients to stay on the more expensive version of the drug."
Teva created a new version of Copaxone that could be injected 3 times a week versus 7 times. Sure, incremental improvement, but it's really up to physicians to decide if it's right for their patients. Apparently they do. And "contracting with middlemen to block generics" is just shorthand for "we'll give you a discount so our product is more attractive than the generic". Isn't price competition good?
I'm not defending Teva's behavior here (yes, they have done shitty things), or the price of their drugs (yes, MS drugs are way too expensive). I'm just saying if you want to impose price controls on drugs, then just do it. Be upfront. Pass a bill that says "your drugs must be priced under $xx,xxx dollars".
This looks like a campaign to shit on a company for pretty typical company things, like forecasting out revenue from a price increase and selectively pulling statistics to paint a situation in the worst possible light that has no bearing on how things actually work.
"An internal slide presented to the company’s drug pricing advisory board showed that the increase would yield $24 million in new net sales."
What kind of company doesn't run revenue estimates for price increases? If you suggest a price increase, the first thing a CEO will ask is "how much extra revenue is that?"
"Teva only spent $689 million on Copaxone-related research since 1987 — just 2% of the roughly $34 billion it took in net revenue for the drug over the last two decades"
Usually drug sales today, pay for other R&D programs. What was Teva's total R&D spending across their entire portfolio over that time? My rough estimate is >$10B or >1/3 of what they made on Revlimid.[1]
"Teva launched a new, more potent version of copaxone as part of what they dubbed a coordinated “generic defense strategy.” The strategy, according to internal powerpoints, included contracting with middlemen to block generics’ market access and aggressive campaigns to lobby both doctors and patients to stay on the more expensive version of the drug."
Teva created a new version of Copaxone that could be injected 3 times a week versus 7 times. Sure, incremental improvement, but it's really up to physicians to decide if it's right for their patients. Apparently they do. And "contracting with middlemen to block generics" is just shorthand for "we'll give you a discount so our product is more attractive than the generic". Isn't price competition good?
I'm not defending Teva's behavior here (yes, they have done shitty things), or the price of their drugs (yes, MS drugs are way too expensive). I'm just saying if you want to impose price controls on drugs, then just do it. Be upfront. Pass a bill that says "your drugs must be priced under $xx,xxx dollars".
This looks like a campaign to shit on a company for pretty typical company things, like forecasting out revenue from a price increase and selectively pulling statistics to paint a situation in the worst possible light that has no bearing on how things actually work.
[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/272544/expenditure-on-re...