Another casualty of our idiotic patent laws meeting our idiotic health care laws. Every single law is designed to improve profits at the cost of lives and in America, most people are totally ok with that despite what the article claims. Then they justify it by saying that we wouldn't have companies to make drugs if we forced them to have reasonable prices. Our idiot legislators really think that you can get rid of drug dealers by keeping prices high? I cannot imagine such just cruelty and hate driven by greed. If the patent program ended tomorrow or was severely reduced in scope (duration of patent), we'd have so much competition (and therefore affordable prices) in this space, it'd start to overshadow our current tech explosion. If we allow Medicare to negotiate prices, we'd have much more affordable prices.<p>The judicial death penalty we impose on criminals might be defendable ethically, but the death penalty we impose on our own citizens due to greed and cruelty is indefensible, cruel, and monstrous. Just so a few beyond-rich people can get even richer. Disgusting.
Step 1: Ban direct to consumer marketing.<p>Step 2: Ban doctor kickbacks including "educational seminars" in the Caribbean.<p>Step 3: Join the rest of the western world and establish a single payer system.
Some of the existing dysfunctional drug market dynamics can be addressed through a break up of the vertical integration: companies can choose to be the R&D/manufacturer in which case they are not allowed to market to doctors/consumers; or they can choose to be a marketer/distributor. Manufacturers must treat marketers non-discriminatorily.<p>This way we can separate the wheat from the chaff. Truly revolutionary products can still charge high patent-protected prices by their exclusive manufacturers. OTOH marketing driven products with weak perceived advantages won't be able to charge the high prices as they do now. In the Epi-pen case, the patent owner will still be the exclusive manufacturer. But if they raise the price by 400% to all the marketers the marketers may choose to promote other generic products instead.
Californians (including me) who have not looked at November initiatives yet - this article mentions the Drug Price Relief Act which seems to be <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_61,_Drug_Price_Standards_(2016)" rel="nofollow">https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_61,_Drug_Pric...</a><p>> A "yes" vote supports regulating drug prices by requiring state agencies to pay the same prices that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (USDVA) pays for prescription drugs.<p>Advocacy site: <a href="http://yeson61.com/" rel="nofollow">http://yeson61.com/</a>
We need to find a way to decrease the time and cost of introducing new drugs to market so we can disarm the argument these drug companies have about needing insane profits to fund research.
There are generic Epi-pens, which are much, much cheaper. You -do not- have to buy the name brand. Non-issue made big by the media and anti-capitalist hordes expecting more free stuff.