article doesnt present any pressure they are facing. also
Drug production costs are often shrouded in secrecy with little clarity on how they relate to prices, if at all.
Prices are never about cost, its what people are willing to pay. Which gets brutally exploited by pharmaceutical industry.
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To be fair, drug development is pretty expensive. A lot of the budgets for it are public-because it happens at public institutions.
Literally almost every drug in existance.
Then after the parent rubs out, they make a slightly different version and repatent it.
Insulin: new formula now 0.0005% more effective for only 9000% increase in profit!
Whoo boy that typo had me going at first lol
That typo is hilarious enough that I must leave it. 😁
Every neighborhood should have community drug labs (not just the sheriff’s meth lab like we have now) and every pharma researcher should be spilling their guts or spilling their guts.
obviously
anybody who believes pharma costs are justified by materials is… well, let’s just call them uninformed. It’s not justified by R&D costs or production issues. It’s justified by the stock market, by the CEO having a race with other pharma CEOs for the biggest bonus, and by no other thing.
I work in med device, close to pharma, but a bit different. There is a lot of overhead. Beyond all the validations required for startup of each line, there is quite a lot of Sustaining work.
I’m not trying to defend this price, or the gouging that pharma does regularly. But I don’t think the $5 price includes all the overhead of the QMS.
It’s like taking the price of the ingredients for a pizza and saying it’s what it should cost.
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It’s really cheap to make a book but that doesn’t stop publishers from selling them at a large markup. This is a pretty basic supply/demand scenario. The pharma company doesn’t owe anyone anything. They exist to make money. The best way to lower the cost is for a competing product to enter the market.
Well if the materials to make a pizza was 5 dollars and it was being sold at 1,000 dollars, saying “oh thats just necessary overhead” would lead me to wonder why the hell that level of inefficiency was tolerated.
why the hell that level of inefficiency was tolerated.
Patents, e.g. legal monopolies.
Maybe fines and penalties for undercutting someone who holds a patent should be scrapped for nonprofit manufacturers of generics.
Maybe profit should come second to the betterment of humanity.
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Because each new type of pizza is made of brand-new ingredients, not just standard wheat flour, tomatoes, cheese, spices, etc. And they’re baked anew and taste-tested to make sure they’re not disgusting, or worse, have toxic effects.
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Im not in charge of the checkbook, but I do place purchase requests. I also am in charge of reducing direct labor and know what our overhead numbers are. We are a small company though. It should be possible to reduce overhead in larger companies due to economies of scale, however, it is not always the case as the bureaucracies required to interface with the FDA are not trivial.
I was involved with a product transfer for a large company one time. Due to the small volume of the product and the complexity of Sustaining and reporting activities it had a 60% overhead. I did look at the books on that. While that’s an extreme case, I’ve also seen product launched with 40% yield. One device I worked on was a stapler for the heart. We had to load the tiny staples into the device, fire it, evaluate the staple formation, then reset and reload the staples. It had about 80-90% yield if I remember correctly.
These aren’t roast beef sandwiches. People die if you fuck up.
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…and you are shit-canning someone else’s input because they don’t know everything based on your even more limited experience, suspect knowledge, and a heavily biased opinion of how you think the world should work. Lay out your superior knowledge or admit you’re just spewing a party line for the upvotes because it sure sounds like they know a hell of a lot more about the subject than you do.
Them:
I’m not trying to defend this price
You:
You are defending a company
Well done.
I’m sure there are some costs associated with developing drugs, and I’m sure it’s not cheap.
The problem still stands, though, and the solution is capping executive pay in public companies.
It’s justified by asking “how much money can we suck out of the people it helps?”
Novo Nordisk’s CEO was paid $9.8 million last year, inclusive of bonus and benefits.
The R&D is often publicly funded by research grants, with free labor by grad students. Our tax dollars are paying for extortion over our health in this completely broken system.
As you pointed out, this is literally just sociopathic CEOs doing what capitalism demands of them.
Normally you can think of these prices as the reward to taking a risk. The chance of developing a drug and bringing it to market is usually small, and the reward should accordingly be high. However, in the particular case of Ozempic, the company attempted to develop a diabetes drug, and accidentally found that the drug works against obesity. That means that the reward in this case outweighs the risk by an obscene amount.
Your starting premise relies on the idea that the costs associated with making drugs are justified. In essence, this implies that the insane rewards are justified because risks associated with not producing a drug are so high.
Most of our science is funded via taxes and controlled by the government, given to researchers through grants that are awarded based on merit as determined by their peers. We’ve developed an adjacent system where drug discovery is funded by capital and investments from non-scientists based on the idea that “striking gold” in the medical world could make them rich.
Why not just remove the cost-barrier to entry? Require all drug discovery to be funded through grants like other research? Pay people working on drugs whether they discovered a new drug or not, as long as they provided proof of their efforts? Researchers would not need to please those with money (banks, investors) to give them funds for a drug, and so would be free to work on drugs that have a low likelihood of being profitable (such as for forgotten illnesses, or using cheap and widely available medicines in novel ways). And when an amazing drug was discovered, our society would be free to use it efficiently and at-cost, since there wouldn’t be stakeholders hungry for their massive payout.
The grant system is a mess, also. And in an ideal world those whose ideas and research led to amazing discoveries would be rewarded extensically somehow, both with appreciation and a reasonable amount of money (the staff of an entire research organization could be set financially for life for a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount of money we shovel over to pharmaceutical company stakeholders). And all of this is also tied up in the clinical medical industrial complex, with all its own neuroses.
So there are barriers to implementing something like this… But holy shit do I hear this idea a lot, that high risk justifies the insane rewards. I think it’s bogus!
Most of the research on drugs is done by universities with grant money or government labs and then the production is sold to private companies. They aren’t taking nearly the amount of risk you are claiming.
Meanwhile volvo assigns the patent for the 3-point seatbelt to the public domain because it will save countless lives.
A Swedish company not being evil? What are they, the opposite of America?
Novo Nordisk is a Danish company, not American.
We were talking about Volvo.
Right. But based on context clues, it’s implied that the full meaning of the post was “Volvo did something for the public good, therefor Volvo is good. Volvo is a Swedish company. Swedish companies are good. Sweden is in Europe. European countries are good. American countries are bad. Novo Nordisk did something bad. It must be an American company.”
Admittedly, my mistake was not being more clear about the point of my response which is that geography is irrelevant - capitalism and all companies are evil (or at best, amoral).
You didn’t have a clarity issue
That was in no way what I was saying, which about U.S. companies pretty much never doing the right thing and European companies actually doing that sometimes.
Double pop! First time I’ve seen a privacy popup on top of a privacy popup. The top one you can only accept.
Extra privacy wow!
Ah I see they are going the Roku route.
I specifically re-open those pages in a browser on my computer, hit F12 (developer tools) or right-click -> inspect element, then delete the elements containing the popup and any modal overlays associated with it. Often you also have to re-enable scrolling, which is usually lazily implemented in the <body> element styles or classes, so just delete all the styles in the body tag, and maybe the classes if that doesn’t work, and you’re good to go. Then you’re able to continue without agreeing to whatever horse shit policy or disclaimer they are trying to force you to accept.
you can also block or remove the elements with UBlock Origin. either on desktop or mobile, just enter element picker mode, select the popup and tap create.
Cheers, that’ll be my goto on mobile going forward!
It pretty clearly says “accept it or gtfo”
Are you expecting a No button that redirects your to Google or something?
Well… it doesn’t. Why would i have to accept twice if i did?
First is “this isn’t a negotiation. Accept or leave” Second is “pick the cookies you want”
I dont see it this way. They contradict themselves. If i accept the first one but reject the one bellow, that should override the first. Its not logical to force me to accept in order to get to the next one where i can reject
What you are rejecting in the second one are optional tracking/performance cookies.
Well you see… there’s the yacht, the yacht they have to land the helicopter, and the smallish yacht they use to go into port because berths at dock are hard to come by.
Oh and the. There’s the helicopter, the pilots, the mansion in every state. Except, uh, the ones that tax rich people.
It’s all part of the cost…
You forgot the biggest expense; the billions of dollars in stock buybacks.
Have you seen all those hoes and bitches that get on those yachts and they all got their titties out and showing their ass and pussy. It’s a great trickle down economy Ronny put together.
“Don’t think he knows about second yacht, Pip.”
CAD$650/month in Canada. I’ve lost 36 Kg (80 lbs) and I’m still losing weight. My blood work shows no signs of diabetes, my cardiac indicators are also excellent, but my hemoglobin is low because I don’t eat beef anymore (not because of the Ozempic, I haven’t been able to digest it for about six years.) I’m taking an iron supplement to build it back up.
Ozempic sucks until you stop fighting it. After that it’s an easy ride.
I’m wearing an XL t-shirt and large sweat pants today down from 3XL in both eight months ago.
Any side effects?
It acts by slowing down the emptying of your stomach. That means that whatever you eat stays in your stomach for many hours. If you eat too much at night or something that is acidy or spicy it causes terrible heart burn and reflux/regurgitation. I take an omeprazole with sodium bicarbonate at bedtime to relieve the acid.
I eat a granola bar or a couple of eggs for breakfast then a small bowl of whatever is on offer for dinner and that’s it. My stomach is never empty. Sometimes, if I want to have something spicy or acidy I will have it for breakfast. I’ve had a fajita for breakfast and I once had chicken parm for breakfast. Then I eat something easy for dinner.
The most upsetting side effect was the fact that I went from a daily bathroom guy to every three or four days. I was eating so much less and my body was making such good use of what I ate that I just didn’t produce much. It can cause constipation but you need to avoid taking laxatives because you can become dependant. Just drink lots of water, eat lots of fiber, and walk a lot and you will be fine.
If you fight it it’s going to make you miserable. If you lean in you will lose a lot of weight fast. I’ve lost so much weight so quickly that my body freaks me out a bit. When I’m sitting on the edge of the bed and look down at my legs I don’t recognize them. I told someone a few weeks ago that I just wanted a little candy because I’m fat and she said, “No you’re not.”
On the plus side I mentioned to my doctor that I was getting shorter (in in my late 50s and went from 5’ 10 1/2" to 5’ 9 1/2" and he asked, “Your penis?” I said, “No, that’s getting longer!” He laughed and said, “It was hiding.” I’ve actually gained an inch and a half of useable penis. (That’s a happy side effect.)
Ozempic sucks until you stop fighting it. After that it’s an easy ride.
Are there plateaus like with other weight loss?
I’m not eating any solid food due to a medical issue (long story) and I have lost 80 pounds as well. My weight can drop very quickly sometimes, as much as a pound every few days. Other times, like recently, it takes a long time to go down. It’s taken me a good two months to go from 190 to 180, whereas I was 260 at the start of January 2023.
If not eating enough period causes plateaus, I would think Ozempic would as well.
I plateaued in the low 220s for a month or so then the weight fell off me to the low 200s. I’m creeping down now at about half a pound per week. My ultimate goal was to get to 200 lbs but I’m now thinking that I may go to 190 lbs since the weight is continuing to come off. I don’t want to go lower than that. I don’t want to be a thin person. I just want to be less fat.
My husband plateaued with it and had to go to a higher dose. No idea how common that is.
I’m definitely no expert on this, but it’s my understanding that weight loss plateaus are pretty common. I’m not sure why though.
That’s pricey. Here in the UK, I think it’s like…hmm… $256 CAD. Still expensive though which puts it out of reach for a lot of people to keep it up regularly.
76.58€, here. 30% reimbursed by social security, probably another 30% by your work insurance.
There’s a lot of mistrust with drug makers at the moment, for good reason and this is a great article on the breakdown of costs. They do have a point about recouping the cost of R&D but maybe they should be more transparent about how long it’ll take them to do so. MBAs are very good at pulling levers to make money, they just don’t think about the human element, which is the most important lever.
Two points about R&D costs:
First, they aren’t just trying to make up what they spent on this treatment, but others that failed during research/trials. There’s a lot of them the general public will never hear about, and pharmas generally don’t like to bring attention to their failures. Part of that is many shareholders are morons who don’t understand how science works.
Second, the costs can get fuzzier for larger companies who in-house much of the R&D process, since the costs get shared among many programs. Properly attributing spend in that case can be a serious challenge.
All that said, they’ve clearly seen an opportunity to rake it in with this trendy drug and are charging way more than they need to.
If these were nonprofit companies and all employees were paid at/below market rates I would not complain.
It is the profit and CEO pay that I object to.
Guys our government is broken.
As I read that they charge just 155 bucks in other countries I guess the high price lies in not having a suitable health care system. You can’t have both, calling other countries socialists or communists AND having good health care by having the same contracts that we have. Sorry.
Universal Health Care is what Americans should be rioting for. It is THE game changer in QoL and what really separats a first world country from a second world country.
I remember how hard Fox News was pushing it when they could feel it possibly coming. Remember the whole “death panel” nonsense? It was absurd.
They were even saying how the current healthcare system was simpler and direct and better. It was insanity.
It separates the capitalists from the communists?
$1500. That’s how much eight weeks of ozempic costs for me if I had to pay out of pocket.
How much to get people together to steal the recipe and set up a lab?
Bet its less than a five year supply, which is probably just a week or two between a group og interested parties!
Where is Walter White when you need him
Jesse! We need to cook.
I’m diabetic, and also have a few mental health issues. The doc took me off Ozempic, citing it’s side affects of messing with mental health.
Sorry to hear it. What sort of side effects were there?
Doc said risks were reported of adversely affecting PTSD, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
Oh wow. Yeah, definitely a good idea to stop taking it. I’m glad you’re still with us and I hope you’ve found a good solution!
Thanks, I’m doing pretty well. But I don’t need a drug with those side effects. I mention this primarily because these side effects appear to be largely unreported, while the drug is being widely marketed for weight loss. People should be aware of the risks.
I totally get it and those side effects absolutely need to be reported, especially if they are not uncommon.
I have a weird allergy to some opioids which results in a sort of psychosis and definitely possible self-harm, but that is a very uncommon effect there. Imagine if it was happening to people all over but no one was talking about it!
I mention this primarily because these side effects appear to be largely unreported
Thank you for doing so.
Seriously, no kidding but sometimes I think that people are still discovering capitalism
well you know the old adage, the bigger the margin, the better the rape
Guy looks like Bill Gates without hair.
Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos did the Fusion Dance
“Mo-ney Ha!”
