hey dipshite, I hate to break this to ya, but zer0-care kickstarted all this bs....

keep on trying, ding-dong...

Is she simply being cute with her spelling of stock and buyback using an h in place of k??

And stinky aint wrong. Obamacare opened the floodgates on this kind of crap.

(05-19-2021 05:15 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  Is she simply being cute with her spelling of stock and buyback using an h in place of k??

And stinky aint wrong. Obamacare opened the floodgates on this kind of crap.

Americans were being gouged by the drug companies long before the ACA.

The economics of the drug industry are very poorly understood. Here is a short primer.

Say you come up with a new cancer drug. To get FDA approval, you are looking at a 3-phase process. Before you start Phase 1, you have a pre-clinical phase testing it on animals before you get permission from FDA to move forward with human testing. In a nutshell, Phase 1 is testing to prove that it does no harm, Phase 2 is testing to prove it works, and Phase 3 is testing to prove that it works better than what we already have. The process can take 5-10 years and can cost up to $100 million if it makes it through all 3 phases, and at the start there is about a 1% chance of success. Based on historic data, the pre-clinical phase has about a 12% chance of getting to FDA submission, the FDA submission has about a 90% chance of getting to Phase 1, Phase 1 has about a 20% chance of getting to Phase 2, Phase 2 has about a 29% chance of getting to Phase 3, Phase 3 has about a 61% chance of getting to submission for final approval, and submission for final approval has about a 74% chance of getting to market successfully. And obviously you don't spend the whole $100 million up front, but in increments as you get to each phase. So some researcher in a lab may be able to complete the pre-clinical phase and get FDA approval to proceed with human testing, but from that point he/she needs the kind of money that big Pharma and nobody else has.

Is it gouging or is it raising the kind of capital needed to afford to bet $100MM on a 1% long-shot? And do so repeatedly.

I have to be candid, I think the stock buy-backs were bad from an appearance standpoint, but they do have to keep themselves marketable in our capital markets and I am not familiar with all the issues involved there.

Here is the collateral problem. Most other countries are willing to pay only the marginal cost of making a new dose, and not any of the R&D and FDA approval costs. So that leaves the $100 million to fall solely on USA patients. What we need to do is to force other countries to pay their fair share of the $100 million. But we haven't had anybody in power who wasn't more interested in demagoguing the problem than fixing it.

(05-19-2021 08:06 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The economics of the drug industry are very poorly understood. Here is a short primer.

Say you come up with a new cancer drug. To get FDA approval, you are looking at a 3-phase process. Before you start Phase 1, you have a pre-clinical phase testing it on animals before you get permission from FDA to move forward with human testing. In a nutshell, Phase 1 is testing to prove that it does no harm, Phase 2 is testing to prove it works, and Phase 3 is testing to prove that it works better than what we already have. The process can take 5-10 years and can cost up to $100 million if it makes it through all 3 phases, and at the start there is about a 1% chance of success. Based on historic data, the pre-clinical phase has about a 12% chance of getting to FDA submission, the FDA submission has about a 90% chance of getting to Phase 1, Phase 1 has about a 20% chance of getting to Phase 2, Phase 2 has about a 29% chance of getting to Phase 3, Phase 3 has about a 61% chance of getting to submission for final approval, and submission for final approval has about a 74% chance of getting to market successfully. And obviously you don't spend the whole $100 million up front, but in increments as you get to each phase. So some researcher in a lab may be able to complete the pre-clinical phase and get FDA approval to proceed with human testing, but from that point he/she needs the kind of money that big Pharma and nobody else has.

Is it gouging or is it raising the kind of capital needed to afford to bet $100MM on a 1% long-shot? And do so repeatedly.

I have to be candid, I think the stock buy-backs were bad from an appearance standpoint, but they do have to keep themselves marketable in our capital markets and I am not familiar with all the issues involved there.

Here is the collateral problem. Most other countries are willing to pay only the marginal cost of making a new dose, and not any of the R&D and FDA approval costs. So that leaves the $100 million to fall solely on USA patients. What we need to do is to force other countries to pay their fair share of the $100 million. But we haven't had anybody in power who wasn't more interested in demagoguing the problem than fixing it.

Why would any politician try to fix the problems when big pharma keeps their pockets full to avoid just such a thing.

At no point will companies making stacks of billions get my sympathy. It isnt like they are hurting at all, and the medicine saves lives.

The guy who came up with insulin sold the patent for ONE DOLLAR because he said he never wanted someone who needed it, not to be able to afford it..

Now insulin is around 500 bucks a month.

F Big Pharma. They are the biggest problem in healthcare, followed closely by medical equipment.

(05-19-2021 05:15 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  Is she simply being cute with her spelling of stock and buyback using an h in place of k??

And stinky aint wrong. Obamacare opened the floodgates on this kind of crap.

I am sure she spells Obama's first name Barach

"Enrich your shareholders".....wait, wait wait. I've been investing all this time, understanding it to be a donation. Does she mean there are companies out there that return their investor's contribution, and then even extra money on top of that!?!?! Sounds fishy.

(05-18-2021 11:17 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  hey dipshite, I hate to break this to ya, but zer0-care kickstarted all this bs....

keep on trying, ding-dong...

Are you saying pharma never made huge profits before Obamacare?

I'm surprised she didnt try to back up her claims more foricbly by breaking out the batman outfit.

Do I think some drug prices are ridiculously high? Yes

Do I realize that Drug Companies spend a ton on research and trials? Yes

But I still want an incentive for Drug Companies to continue creating new drugs and therapies. All the Dems do is whine and offer few ideas.

I’m no fan of big pharma. She’s right, but the problem is allowing other countries to leech off US innovation. A pill should cost exactly the same in the US, Mexico and Canada. W shouldn’t allow foreign governments to set price controls that require our citizens to pay more. The cost needs to be shared or they can develop their own drugs.

(05-19-2021 11:15 AM)banker Wrote:  I’m no fan of big pharma. She’s right, but the problem is allowing other countries to leech off US innovation. A pill should cost exactly the same in the US, Mexico and Canada. W shouldn’t allow foreign governments to set price controls that require our citizens to pay more. The cost needs to be shared or they can develop their own drugs.

This...make Canada and other countries pay for it.

(05-19-2021 11:27 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(05-19-2021 11:15 AM)banker Wrote:  I’m no fan of big pharma. She’s right, but the problem is allowing other countries to leech off US innovation. A pill should cost exactly the same in the US, Mexico and Canada. W shouldn’t allow foreign governments to set price controls that require our citizens to pay more. The cost needs to be shared or they can develop their own drugs.

This...make Canada and other countries pay for it.

Thing is, if they were not making money in Canada, they wouldnt sell in Canada. Once again it is just the BS we get that they HAVE to charge us so much to make up for other countries.

(05-19-2021 11:33 AM)memtigbb Wrote:  

(05-19-2021 11:27 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(05-19-2021 11:15 AM)banker Wrote:  I’m no fan of big pharma. She’s right, but the problem is allowing other countries to leech off US innovation. A pill should cost exactly the same in the US, Mexico and Canada. W shouldn’t allow foreign governments to set price controls that require our citizens to pay more. The cost needs to be shared or they can develop their own drugs.

This...make Canada and other countries pay for it.

Thing is, if they were not making money in Canada, they wouldn't sell in Canada. Once again it is just the BS we get that they HAVE to charge us so much to make up for other countries.

They are "making money" depending on how you allocate costs. If it costs $1.00 to manufacture a pill, and Canada lets you buy it sell it for $1.25, then you are "making money" on the marginal cost of producing the pill. But that $0.25 does not go very far toward amortizing the $100MM cost of R&D and jumping through the FDA hoops. And you have to make that cost back somewhere.

I think Warp Speed has perhaps shown us that one answer is to reduce the time and cost of the approval process. But you're talking about kicking over bureaucrats' rice bowls, and that doesn't play well with the Blob.

We’ve been sold a bill of goods…”it’s our responsibility to pay 25x’s more for pharmaceuticals in order to fund the worlds r&d” … meanwhile, industry profits are astronomical and Americans (5% of the worlds population) consume 50% of all pharmaceuticals.

Perhaps it’s time for our leaders to stand up for the consumers and stop kowtowing to the companies feeding us this garbage.