Why hundreds of decades-old yet vital drugs are nearly impossible to find

In short, it&#x27;s because if the MBAs that head large corporations were dieticians they&#x27;d try to make everyone anorexic to save on their grocery bills. If they were home builders they&#x27;d remove half the shingles from the roof and one hinge from every door, as well as remove the handles from toilets forcing you to open the tank every time you wanted to flush.<p>Of course they would personally pocket all the savings, and use it to buy for themselves everything they deny to everyone else in the name of &quot;efficiency&quot;. I guarantee you none of the pharmaceutical company execs are going to miss one dose of their meds.

Then Pfizer had a tornado destroy a building and 50,000 pallets of medications: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;rct=j&amp;opi=89978449&amp;url=https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wcnc.com&#x2F;amp&#x2F;article&#x2F;weather&#x2F;severe-weather&#x2F;pfizer-rocky-mount-north-carolina-tornado-damage-severe-weather-outbreak-nash-county&#x2F;275-eb35781b-ac79-4399-955a-dcecebb1bb31&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjKkMCU6Z2AAxUqlGoFHYOMBoUQFnoECDMQAQ&amp;usg=AOvVaw013jAnh19ixjlOkfqJbAZY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;rct=j&amp;opi=8997844...</a><p>It&#x27;s going to get worse.

“Life-saving Drugs are too Inexpensive to Produce”<p>It’s a ridiculous headline, I know. But, that is the gist of this article. It just doesn’t say so. Pharmaceutical drugs, and the pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated. It is very expensive to comply with drug manufacturing and distribution regulations. Those regulatory expenses are so high that it is simply not profitable enough for any company to produce these cheap generic drugs at a sustainable profit. It doesn’t make sense for a pharmaceutical company to comply with all regulations and make a profit on inexpensive, generic drugs.<p>The real headline is “Generic Drugs are Over Regulated, Making Them too Expensive to Produce”

There is a difference in the government&#x27;s willingness and ability to develop and stockpile:<p>1. essential medicines that can save lives and promote well being<p>and<p>2. weapons that are intended to maim and kill other humans.<p>In a democracy, the voters are responsible for that difference.<p>The WHO list of Essential Medicines is a very low bar that any advanced nation should be able to exceed. The fact that something as common as albuterol is currently in shortage, is a national disgrace.<p>It seems that Executive Order 13944 has had little impact.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fda.gov&#x2F;about-fda&#x2F;reports&#x2F;executive-order-13944-list-essential-medicines-medical-countermeasures-and-critical-inputs" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fda.gov&#x2F;about-fda&#x2F;reports&#x2F;executive-order-13944-...</a>

Imagine a US-China war where China&#x27;s oil supply is cut off by the US Navy, and China refuses to export the precursors to pharmaceuticals.<p>About 2&#x2F;3rds of US adults take at least one prescription medication.

Either you bust monopolies, or this is what you get.<p>At this point, the US medical system has become a sequence of monopolies at every level. These are the consequences.<p>Every company with more than 20% market share in a vertical should split in half. Having 5 or 6 companies in every vertical would solve most of the monopoly problems.

Are there any chemical precursors these drugs all have in common that could have been exhausted by something else that is more important to manufacture?<p>Alternatively is supply being commandeered somehow?<p>So much weird stuff is happening with supply chains that it feels like the US is purposefully being squeezed.

I&#x27;ve been out of 1 important drug (with another’s availability being spotty for months now) for a month thanks to these shortages, and I wasn’t supposed to go from the highest dosage down to zero so quickly. This all seems like a major f___up by <i>someone.</i>

It comes down to profit. Low to negative profit equals no medications. We need to give incentives to manufactures to produce the meds.<p>Years ago , the Orphan Drug Act law passed by Congress in 1983 incentivized the development of drugs to treat rare diseases. It worked. It has produced numerous drugs to treat rare diseases. They are very expensive but they exist vs not existing at all. If we can get a similar act that would give incentives to manufacture these vital drugs at a reasonable price then it would be a win for everyone.<p>My first guess would be to have a minimum price that&#x27;s equal to manufacture cost plus 15% profit.<p>People are going to automatically oppose it because it will raise prices but the fact is we live in a capitalist system that produces nothing unless it produces a profit too. I would rather have the drugs available that save lives and pay a bit more than not having them at all.

This has a lot to do with the oligopoly in pharmacy benefit managers. top 3 PBMs account for 79% of all prescriptions dispensed in 2020. These companies in turn negotiate hard with generic manufacturers that often they sell at a loss and aren&#x27;t motivated to produce for America.

&quot;I’m a health economist who has studied the pharmaceutical industry for the past 15 years. I believe the drug shortage problem illustrates a major shortcoming of capitalism.&quot;<p>He is arguing against his own point. The problem is a lack of supply but he is promoting the wrong political answer to a politically generated problem. In a purely capitalist economy a lack of supply would cause prices to go increase and the market would respond accordingly. This industry is highly regulated. In some cases for good reason. Regulation always stifles capitalism and results in less profit for the manufacture. The fix for to much regulation is less regulation, not more.

the actual title of the article is... &quot;Blame capitalism? Why hundreds of decades-old yet vital drugs are nearly impossible to find&quot;<p>Which shows its inherent political bias.