Old drug gets an absurd price hike to $89,000 Dollars per year [deflazacort]

I have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I have one lesion on my spine (Transverse Myelitis) which unfortunately has taken my trade away (Timberwright) since my hands always feel numb to feeling like bugs are crawling on my hands as well as very tight bands on my wrists. Also I have a "shawl of pain" draped over my shoulders. I also have 19+ lesions in my brain which makes me very forgetful which drives my wife mad at times when I give her a blank stare and have problems with comprehending what she has said to me.

I take a new drug called Tecfidera which costs around $50,000 a year. I do have some coupons that allow me to get somewhat of a discount but the drug is still way too expensive to afford. At least Gabapentin is not that expensive.

Lord knows that I am hoping that President Trump and the repeal and replace gives my wife and I some relief. She has to work two jobs just to make ends meet.

Drug prices are just way too expensive to begin with outside of the fact of some Pharma companies raising prices as high as Pluto. Pharma is just another example of legal robbery in my eyes.

originally posted by: Terminal1
I have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
...
I take a new drug called Tecfidera which costs around $50,000 a year.

The response to treatment of an illness is an individual thing.

While we'd like to think there's one solution for everybody, experience shows that people respond differently to alternative treatments.

Maybe Tecfidera is the best treatment for you.

But, it could be that there are other treatments that might work better.

Never give up hope.

And at $50,000/yr, that's a good sign that you should keep looking.

Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis

From looking at how this medicine works and all the side effects, I doubt if I would want to take it. There are dietary changes that can be made that will help with the diseases that this medication treats. It sure isn't worth that huge price tag, I think this company got really greedy. This is an old drug, just repurposed, looking for the old drug by a different company which is not FDA approved for this application may be possible, so the doctor just has to say you are being treated for that disease. I think doctors do that sometimes to keep patient costs down.

originally posted by: AVoiceOfReason
a reply to: ExNihiloRed

wait what? this is not capitalism. this is a direct result of socialism. the drug company is guaranteed payment by the government. i dont know if youve noticed but we have "free" healthcare now. free is code for ruining the life of everyone in the middle class to pay for it.

how is any company gonna sell an 89000 dollar drug in a free market? no one would be able to afford it.

Hmm. This has nothing to do with the government, per se. This kind of stuff has been happening for a long time. If you really think about it you will realize this is actually all a product of the free market. "Free market" does not necessarily equate to "pharmaceutical companies directly to consumers." Insurance companies and other intermediaries as an equal part of the free market.

originally posted by: Skywatcher2011

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Skywatcher2011

I have no clue how the system or procedures work

From what I've seen so far, neither does he.

That is why he will hire the best people who know the system so that they can inform him to make the best decision for the people and not the companies.

cause that is what he has been doing thus far right?
hiring the best people to inform him

what a joke

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

This is to help the world get their drugs cheaper.

This is to ensure there will be money in the pipeline to create the next drug.

This is becasue of law suits, this drives up drug costs.

This is becasue the Dr.s are lobbied to push the drugs.

Pick what excuse you want. Too much money and it won't change until it crashes.

originally posted by: Skywatcher2011
Okay, so we know that Big Pharma is all about making money off drugs. Period. But this? Check it.



You could previously import the generic medicine for about $1,200 per year, but it now costs a staggering $89,000 per year -- "just" $54,000 with discounts and rebates.


This is truly gouging and unfair to those who are suffering and it shows that big drug companies just don't give a s# about people...just the money. Sad, but true.

Truly sad, and since the Pharma Industry is the very top lobbyists in billions of dollars, politicians on both side are reluctant to do anything about this

The investors say that you should not worry since the Insurance will pay for most of it.
But then the same investors are puzzled why we have such high insurance premiums

I'm sure everyone remembers Martin Shkreli, the former hedgefund manager that bought the rights to an old drug and jacked the price of ONE PILL from 13.50 to 750 dollars. He did not additional research or investment into the drug like some of the excuses I hear.


No, he wanted to make a cash cow out of it

www.vanityfair.com...

Shkreli says that for people without insurance it will cost only $1 a pill. For everyone else, insurance, which he argues is paid for by corporate America’s profits, will cover the cost.

Everything we’ve done is legal. [Standard Oil tycoon John D.] Rockefeller made no attempt to apologize as long as what he was doing was legal.” In fact, Shkreli says, he wishes he had raised the price higher. “My investors expect me to maximize profits

originally posted by: ExNihiloRed
Unfortunately, the people who run these companies have a fiduciary duty to maximize profits for their investors. Until we change the nature of capitalism, this is reality. Be aware, I am in no way advocating we abandon capitalism. Change can be subtle or incremental. I am not smart enough to have a solution. A lot of emotional responses and gut-reactions will claim to know how to fix the world, but most of the time these alternative paths have as many or more problems than those we currently face. I think we can all agree, though, that big pharma has a choke hold on policy makers. Ironically, competition is king for issues like this. Maybe we should just blame insurance companies? I know there is an argument there.

I would hardly call it Capitalism when the Industry is in bed with the Government.
It is also not Capitalism when consumers and labor had no say in drafting the "Affordable" Care Act
In Laissez Faire Capitalism, all parties are entitled to bargaining power and the power is all in the hands of corporate fascists
www.opensecrets.org...

Top Lobbying Industries

Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $3,146,090,212
Insurance $2,190,651,832
Electric Utilities $2,013,127,133
Electronics Mfg & Equip $1,823,347,451
Business Associations $1,811,811,643
Oil & Gas $1,715,405,541
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $1,416,425,661
Education $1,399,862,870
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $1,310,021,801
Telecom Services $1,271,840,866
Securities & Investment $1,264,774,284
Civil Servants/Public Officials $1,216,181,432
Real Estate $1,215,135,758
Health Professionals $1,189,983,794
Air Transport $1,125,384,003
Misc Issues $929,225,311
Automotive $891,793,138
Defense Aerospace $887,354,553
Health Services/HMOs $863,410,051
TV/Movies/Music $851,379,595

originally posted by: AVoiceOfReason
this is what happens when a government guarantees payment for medicine. this is exactly what i told someone the other day. what is there to stop a company from raising prices on anything and everything if the government guarantees them payment? this is the symptoms of socialism.

It would be Corporate Led Socialism though
The Affordable Care Act started with Politicians and Lobbyists.
That was its origin

a reply to: AVoiceOfReason

I also think this has more to do with the Middle Man a that Middle Man is Wall Street
They always want a cut of everyones money.

Prior to 1970 and before the age of Big Multinationals, Mom and Pops ruled this country and they did not have stocks on Wall Street

The Family Farms did not have stocks on Wall Street
The average American had a pension instead of stocks on Wall Street

Everything is being done to reward Wall Street and punish Americans.
The Government picks Wall Street over the Average American as seen by the bail outs, and infinity QE

Wall Street is the Middle Man that needs to be taken out of the equation

Well good thing we have this wonderful mechanism called the internet. I don't know why idiots support Big Pharma here.

Can get deflazacort, 30mg, 90 count online for $159. When needed I've regularly bought meds from overseas with zero issues. Just need to, you know, use the internet correctly.

Had a friend who was diagnosed with Hep C. Can be easily cured but the 12 week cost for meds here is 96K! Sent him to a trusted overseas pharmacy, got the 12 week bundle of meds for roughly $1,100 and was completely cured in three months.

originally posted by: AVoiceOfReason
a reply to: Phage

so what? how are you gonna sell snake oil with the internet around? how would you sell snake oil when we live in a world with laboratories. people can test drugs in their own god damn basement. come on. these are not things people living in the 21 century should be worrying about.

people are more equipped than ever to regulate markets themselves.

These multinationals do not need protecting.
Did you know these Major Pharma and Insurance Companies attended many of the Bilderberg Meetings?

Do you remember what Rockefeller said about letting the markets decide for themselves?

The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”
― David Rockefeller

That is code speak for Rockefeller and Corporations saying they do not agree we should leave the market to its own forces.

It has been a disaster allowing corporations to control things, and now Trump, the business man is going to make it worse

a reply to: jacobe001

I see your point, and it is one worth considering. With that said, even without cronyism, as a matter of law, these companies have fiduciary duties to maximize profits. Now, the question is where is the line drawn? You can easily make an argument that there is a bell-curve on price and profits in a true free market (perhaps I am articulating your point), such that there will be a price point "people" no longer are willing to pay. Maybe. Maybe not.

The affordable care act is in interesting example you raise. It purported to pave a way for uninsured people to get insured. In the free market, those people would be unable to obtain healthcare. I am not sure then how giving them market share caused this price hike. In fact, I'm confident the price hike would have occurred regardless of the affordable care act.

Are you suggesting there should be more government regulation? Isn't that anti-free market?

At the end of the day, the free market principles that are in play are this: insurance companies pay these exorbitant amounts and people (or the companies they work for) pay the insurance premiums. Insurance companies have become a necessary evil for the average citizen who does not have enough free capital to account for the many disasters that could occur in his or her life. As I said before, the real trick here is competition. More insurance companies or more pharmaceutical companies, less strangleholds on patents and other IP, etc. inevitably would result in a decline in price. Maybe I'm just ignorant, though.

a reply to: ExNihiloRed

Definition of inelastic economics

What is 'Inelastic'. An economic term used to describe the situation in which the quantity of a good or service is unaffected when the price of that good or service changes.

a reply to: ExNihiloRed

you dont sell what people cant buy. its that simple. check again. this is a symptom of government.

a reply to: jacobe001

if it quacks its a duck. socialism is a degenerative system no matter who its led by.

a reply to: jacobe001

who is protecting them? im only pointing out what allows them to act they way they do.

corporations dont control a free market. people control a free market and government protects the rights of people. corporations only get control by way of corrupt governments.

what can a corporation do on its own? it can sell you something. now what can a corporation do with the government on their side? everything and more. its all about control and we the people have handed over that control for security. we allowed people like Rockefeller to convince us that we cant function on our own and need great big entities to guide and control our lives.

a reply to: AVoiceOfReason

The sad news is our system is in worse shape than many may socialistic systems.

If it were not for the petro dollar (and military machine) we would NOT have 20,000,000,000,000 in debt, no one would loan us the $$$$.

A system is only as good as it's handlers. If the handlers feather their own nests, crash. Do you think that the US is not going to have to pay this $$ back? Sooner or later this will set reset.

a reply to: AVoiceOfReason

Very well said, corporatism is a huge problem.

I think there could be some chicken or the egg with this. In the 50's and 60's the saying was if it is good for GM it is good for the US. Then in the mid to late 70's the modern lobbyist was born.

corporations dont control a free market. people control a free market and government protects the rights of people. corporations only get control by way of corrupt governments.

originally posted by: Puppylove
This is another example of why I refuse to worship Capitalism as the epitome of existence like so many do.

There has to be another way, because this is monstrous. We put people away for smoking marijuana, but we let people get away with killing and bankrupting millions through legal means every day. In fact we even go so far as to make laws that require these people to bankrupt and kill millions in order to maximize profits. This is such an absurd system.

Yes, perhaps enforcing profit margins allowed on medical products for starters or modifying patent laws...

India’s refusal to recognize patents on some of Western drug makers’ most profitable medicines... here