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8 comments

[–] Justintoxicated 5 points (+5|-0) Edited

Mulye took a moment to defend Martin Shkreli, who gained notoriety for buying exclusive rights to another decades-old drug and ruthlessly raised its price by more than 5,000 percent virtually overnight

This is what happens when non-pharma development CEOs run drug companies, essentially this company is a patent troll. People who have not actually been involved in the development of drugs (where you actually meet an interact with physicians and patients)may unfortunately disassociate the drugs with the people that need them.

Also it should be noted that Nostrum is not actually selling the drug because it does not meet FDA purity standards so the "price hike" is just on paper for now but his comments will definitely spark quick approval of a generic competitor.

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/gottlieb-rebuffs-pharma-ceo-nostrum-labs-price-hikes-moral-imperative/532194/

[–] [Deleted] 4 points (+4|-0)

How do you fix this?

Drug companies have to make money. If they didn't why spend the money on research.

I don't think it's right for the country, but I'm unsure of a solution.

[–] smallpond [OP] 5 points (+6|-1)

I don't think private drug companies should be trusted to make people healthy. Countries pump a ton of money into university research, some of which goes towards drug development, which then gets sold to private companies. Either have drug manufacture and distribution as a government service, or regulate to prevent exorbitant profits being made from people's misery.

[–] PMYA 3 points (+3|-0)

I'm not sure why you would be dowmvoted for saying this. If people are dying because they can't afford to pay drug companies ridiculous amounts of money, the free market has failed and it needs to be regulated.

Anything less than that is idealism.

[–] [Deleted] 2 points (+2|-0)

I'm a huge free market proponent and I agree this system is not working. It is worth pointing out however that this is not a true free market system. They're many regulations that muddy the water.

Are more regulations the answer or less? Less regulation could lead to competition leading to lower prices. More regulations could lead to less drugs being developed.

I do not claim to know.