Hepatitis C Drug to Cost $1000 Per Day

[zookeeper]

A lot of you need to read The Truth About The Drug Companies by Marcia Angell.
Here's a fairly long excerpt of the book from the New York Review of Books.
In fact, I should DARE you to read it and see if many of you come out feeling the same way.

Drug companies aren't just out to "recover costs" - it's a blood sport for higher and higher profits.
Whether the drug actually works isn't even a factor many times.

[BBatesokc]

A lot of you need to read The Truth About The Drug Companies by Marcia Angell.
Here's a fairly long excerpt of the book from the New York Review of Books.
In fact, I should DARE you to read it and see if many of you come out feeling the same way.

Drug companies aren't just out to "recover costs" - it's a blood sport for higher and higher profits.
Whether the drug actually works isn't even a factor many times.

I doubt many (if any) of us are not aware many drug companies are multi-billion dollar earners. You don't realize those sorts of profits without making lots of money off of your product.

There are all sorts of industries where multi-millions and billions are profited every year - so, obviously the consumer of their goods and services is paying far more than their actual cost. Not to mention the industries that enrich themselves all the while knowing their product is killing people (food industry, tobacco, etc.) or being produced by the poorest in the world at a dishonest wage.

People can dream of some non-existent world where others are only motivated to help others and all wealth is distributed equally, but that world doesn't and never has existed.

I'm betting most of the millions and billions that are generated for pharmaceutical companies is a direct result of how their customers (you and I) live our lives - drug abuse, obesity, and on and on.

I also don't think $90,000 or so to be cured of Hep C is too high of a cost in general. As pointed out before, a single emergency room visit or operation can far exceed that cost.

[Dennis Heaton]

Prescription Price Profiting: Just How Much You Could Save By Shopping Around | KFOR.com

[Cocaine]

Well how long until an Indian company makes a generic and claims that Indians can't pay $1,000 per dose like Americans can. It's great that this drug was developed and hopefully it will save a lot of lives. Not everyone who has Hep C caught it through drug use though. That cure rate is incredible though it is absurdly expensive a lot of people don't the like what pharmaceutical companies charge patients to be cured. People can say Pharmaceutical Companies can charge what ever they want but morally it isn't right to do this to people but profits mean more than morals to a lot of people. It's hard to not think of Repo Men reading stuff like this though.

I once had a doctor that was a neurosurgeon talk to about how much she didn't like how much Cancer Drugs cost. She didn't like the fact that these companies were exploiting sick people that didn't have a choice but to pay for the drugs. She seemed like someone that did her job because she loved helping patients. Even went as far as saying she was for single payer.

[Plutonic Panda]

People can say Pharmaceutical Companies can charge what ever they want but morally it isn't right to do this to people but profits mean more than morals to a lot of people. It's hard to not think of Repo Men reading stuff like this though.

If I ever come with out a cure to a disease and some random person comes up to me and tells me it isn't right for me to charge what I'm charging for a cure I MADE, I will say things to that person that would probably get me banned on here.

Profits aren't worth more than lives to me, but I am going to get moneys worth on my product. If you don't make money, you don't stay in business. To me, the money I get from curing aids, I could devote to my future project of curing cancer... and so on.

[td25er]

Well how long until an Indian company makes a generic and claims that Indians can't pay $1,000 per dose like Americans can. It's great that this drug was developed and hopefully it will save a lot of lives. Not everyone who has Hep C caught it through drug use though. That cure rate is incredible though it is absurdly expensive a lot of people don't the like what pharmaceutical companies charge patients to be cured. People can say Pharmaceutical Companies can charge what ever they want but morally it isn't right to do this to people but profits mean more than morals to a lot of people. It's hard to not think of Repo Men reading stuff like this though.

I once had a doctor that was a neurosurgeon talk to about how much she didn't like how much Cancer Drugs cost. She didn't like the fact that these companies were exploiting sick people that didn't have a choice but to pay for the drugs. She seemed like someone that did her job because she loved helping patients. Even went as far as saying she was for single payer.

I don't like that my dermatologist looks at me for 45 seconds and charges me $100 to write refills for prescriptions. It's his right.
I don't like that it cost $100,000 for a 12 hour neck surgery for a relative to save their life. It is what it is.

[hoya]

If you want to make rapid advances in a mature field, you have to pay a whole lot of money.

It seems to me that a lot of drug companies hope for one drug to hit it big, which finances the rest of their operations. Half a dozen drugs don't work, or don't get FDA approval, and that money is just wasted. Then they get a cure like this, and it's going to be the thing that funds their company for the next 20 years. So the cost of the drug is going to be reflective not just of how much it costs to produce, but how much it costs to keep the company afloat. They may end up making lots of money and that's okay. Because the investors who provide the money for research aren't doctors. They aren't the ones doing the research. And if the company doesn't make money then those people don't invest. They'll invest in a company that makes toy soldiers, or video games, or TVs, or rubber tires.

[Cocaine]

I don't like that my dermatologist looks at me for 45 seconds and charges me $100 to write refills for prescriptions. It's his right.
I don't like that it cost $100,000 for a 12 hour neck surgery for a relative to save their life. It is what it is.

Your forgetting that doctors aren't the reason why medical cost are so high. If you were to get a 12 hour neck surgery how much do you think the fee would be that the doctor would charge. For me it was $10,000 it's a lot of money but doctors are NOT the problem you might have some they just wanna make money off of people but if you get a huge medical bill and look at all the other charges you realize that it's not doctors it's charges for every other thing that get's the bill so high. But the reality if your relatives life in danger you will be able to pay later. Will someone be able to get pill after pill and pay the bill later.

[DavidD_NorthOKC]

I stand by my original comment. If I came out with a cure for HIV tomorrow- that cure would be my property, and I would choose how much it would cost for people to use it. If I wanted it to cost $100,000 a day it would. Outraged? That's fine, you can create you own cure when you get the chance.

Now I'm not claiming I'd do that, but it is my choice to make and rightfully so.

I take it Dr Salk is not a role model?