Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

The answer is that our insurance and medical billing system is a complete tirefire and needs to be burned to the ground and replaced with something sane.

What the article leaves out is that the real reason is that there are laws that were specifically passed to make import of drugs nearly impossible and illegal in most cases. The system is tightly controlled such that no price arbitrage can be had. This shit wouldn't fly with any other product. If it wasn't illegal, companies would be buying in bulk and importing to the US since the US price is literally 10,000x higher. Price would converge quickly. But Congress decided that should be outlawed. And to be clear, we're not talking about off-brand or fake pills that are manufactured in violation of the patent owners wishes. We're talking about the same pills manufactured by, for example, GSK and shipped to different locations around the world. The current system is simply global welfare that everyone in the US pays for.

Stupid question from an idiot from communist Canada: Can't you just import the bloody pills from somewhere that isn't the USA?

From the article: "In the years following albendazole's price hike in 2011, Medicaid spending on the drug went from under $100,000 in 2008 to more than $7.5 million in 2013." To most Congressional Republicans, this is beautiful music begause it means one of their constituents is getting rich by ripping off taxpayers. (Indeed, it may be the only form of music they can appreciate.)

This is a great case where unregulated free markets absolutely fail to solve the problem. Companies like Impax Laboratories are sole-suppliers, and the cost to produce is the smallest cost, once initial capital costs are laid down to build the factories to produce them.<p>What would happen if a challenger appeared? A new company gets some funding to try to make a small number of high profit drugs, competing with Impax? Impax can drop their price on those drugs lower than the challenger until the challenger is out of money.<p>Any incumbent has already paid the initial capital costs, while challengers haven&#x27;t. Challengers can&#x27;t win unless they&#x27;ve got big enough pockets to equal the incumbent, or new techniques that let them undercut even the lowest price the incumbent can do. But in a field like this, where the lowest price is apparently in the pennies, I can&#x27;t really see how you can undercut enough.<p>I don&#x27;t really see any simple solution to this problem.

Because American healthcare is, from an outside perspective, utterly insane.

No mention that the average wage in Tanzania is $45 to $50 a month? As a proportion to wage it is actually more comparable than at first glance.<p>As a solution though, I think we need reciprocity between drug regulatory agencies and open up drug sales between countries that have reciprocity. For example, if a drug is approved for sale in Canada it should be purchasable by people in the US and visa versa. It would allow competition between regulatory agencies (which should in theory make them more efficient because they have to compete) and lower the cost of bringing a drug to market because you no longer need to get approval in as many countries. Which in theory should lower consumer costs.<p>Combine that with transparent pricing so that everyone knows what the costs are before they need to make a purchasing decision and we might be part way to a solution.

&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.drugpatentwatch.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;NDA&#x2F;020666" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.drugpatentwatch.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;NDA&#x2F;020666</a><p>From what I can tell, there are no patents. That means the only thing making this expensive is the lack of competition. The company bought the marketing rights and took over manufacturing.<p>I would imagine after a second supplier enters the market prices will crash.

What&#x27;s to prevent someone from importing the $0.04 pill and selling it for, say, $1?

If the USA would stop outlawing importation of same drugs for resale, these price disparities would disappear overnight.<p>Let&#x27;s not pretend this is some bizarre problem that needs more money to solve. Congress only has to erase one law.

Supply and demand? Because we&#x27;ll pay for it anyway?

While the article talks about big pharma, we can solve this specific parasite issue by switching to another approach: Traditional Chinese medicine. At $60&#x2F;week per tea made of 8-12 ingredients one can completely expel parasites from the body in a few weeks. Of course, big pharma never makes that known or even knows about it themselves. People in rural areas of East Asia certainly do.