70-fold increase

[space-time]

Marathon Pharmaceuticals to charge $89,000 for muscular dystrophy drug after 70-fold increase

A drug to treat muscular dystrophy will hit the U.S. market with a price tag of $89,000 a year despite being available for decades in Europe at a fraction of that cost.

Marathon Pharmaceuticals LLC’s pricing of the drug, which has been available in Europe, is the latest example of a business model that has drawn ire from doctors, patients and legislators in recent years: cheaply acquiring older drugs and then drastically raising their prices.

[rgG]

There should be a special place in hell for the people who make decisions like this.

[space-time]

There already is. Living under the 45th President. Unfortunately, we have to live there too.

[OWC Jamie]

space-time wrote:
There already is. Living under the 45th President. Unfortunately, we have to live there too.

These business practices only came into being on January 20 2017 ?

[Acer]

"In Canada, deflazacort can be bought for around $1 per tablet." (WIkipedia).

The president campaigned on addressing drug prices by allowing purchases from other countries. Now would be a good time.

[Onamuji]

Acer wrote:
"In Canada, deflazacort can be bought for around $1 per tablet." (WIkipedia).

The president campaigned on addressing drug prices by allowing purchases from other countries. Now would be a good time.

Now that he's in office, it's all about budget-cuts and slashing regulations.

Trump has said that he wants 75-80% of FDA regs gone.

Obama's FDA has already streamlined the approval process so much that it's risking lives. Some cancer drugs are being approved with just a few weeks of human-testing and some statistical magic. Once on the marketplace, these new drugs have been shown to do very little compared to the classic treatments, perhaps extending lives by a few weeks if the patient is very lucky and doesn't die from the side-effects. (Heart attacks as a side effect!)

[sekker]

If you have a mutual fund, you are benefiting from similar pricing schemes.

Capitalism is really poor at incentivizing empathy.

[Numo]

sekker wrote:
If you have a mutual fund, you are benefiting from similar pricing schemes.

Capitalism is really poor at incentivizing empathy.

I'm curious - could you please elaborate?

[DP]

I'm curious - could you please elaborate?

Just the usual thing about capitalism being inherently evil.

[sekker]

DP wrote:
I'm curious - could you please elaborate?

Just the usual thing about capitalism being inherently evil.

Not at all. I teach entrepreneurialism.

But pharmaceuticals are VERY popular stocks in mutual funds and retirement portfolios.

Why? They are pretty secure AND high profits.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

If you were to take out the regular and predictable profits from many mutual funds, there would be a major challenge in replacing that part of the portfolio.

I, too, have pharmaceutical stocks in both my 401k as well as my pension.

But I'm not ignorant of my contribution to this current business model.