As much as I support this action 100%, this is a pretty disingenuous argument and makes the stance against lowering drug costs look weak and not grounded in reality.
Drugs cost way more than the cost of manufacturing. R&D costs and the costs of the 95% of novel compounds that fail to yield any results are a massive expenditure that aren't factored into the "cost to make". While much of this is included in public spending because large amounts of R&D come from the public research sector, private research does spend a lot more money than just the cost it takes to make the drug once it's been discovered and approved.
The main problem is that we don't have any universal healthcare system that can use the entire population to negotiate with these companies and to order in massive bulk, like they do in Australia for example. We could also stand to copy their PBS that subsidizes the cost further for most patients.
R&D costs are recouped before a drug becomes eligible for a generic alternative.
The majority of prescriptions are generics.
And also an overwhelming majority of drugs were also funded in whole or in part by the american tax payers.
Drug companies love to tout the cost of bringing a new drug to market but the reality is most of that cost is burdened by the tax payers already via grants and subsidies. Most research is backed by public funding not private equity. Then they let the private company hold the patent for their part and pass more costs onto the tax payers.
The basic science research is being done at universities. Not the additional R&D, process development, manufacturing, etc. to take it from a drug candidate to an actual product.
Nobody in a university lab takes a viable drug to the finish line and then hands it off to a company to make billions of dollars. That's not what happens.
Yeah, I used to work at a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant, and in orientation I learned that the cost to develop a new drug was upwards of $1 billion. I donāt remember the exact number because this was over 20 years ago. They would soon go out of business if they could only charge the price to manufacture, and it would soon stop discovering new medicines if they couldnāt recoup their failures through making large amounts of money from their successes.
Are many of these drugs sustained treatments and not cures? The length of time that profit could be collected would get that billion back though? Genuinely asking not posing questions to be a turd, and if we then factor in a longer patent period instead of just immediately inflated cost as compromise for reasonable costs potentially keep the developments coming?
But the ones creating the drugs donāt recieve a large amount of money for their success. The actual scientist doing the work get paid a salary. The ones making the money are the top executives and shareholders. Who take up, on average, over 50% of a companies net income.
This is the problem.
Cutting into their chunk would save a lot of money downstream.
Of course manufacturing takes up ~25% of sale revenue. but thats easily something that could be handled at state level.
Why is it, in an operation involving literally hundreds of thousands of people. The smallest, and most insignificante portion, get more than half the āsuccessā youāre talking about. All they did was have money.
The most disingenuous thing people try to make this argue about is money.
The cures that we are looking for are found in the work involved. Not the capital investment from these individuals.. Of course you could possibly argue the work comes from the money. But typically, believe it or not, governments have more money and power than investors.
Reduce individual cuts and increasing government support within this sector would solve most of this.
Iām not saying drop it to cost, but when you factor in most longevity of a drug and/or how long will that drug be used by one patient, thereās no reason for the 300+% markup. Insulin is insanely marked up, for a drug that is a lifelong medication to so many people. For a one time, one refill drug I get the markup and thatās somewhat fine depending on how crazy it is.
Universal health care is obviously the dream, but there needs to be a profit limit on pharmaceutical companies or something equally out of reachā¦ capitalism
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u/TheMaltesefalco 13h ago
How exactly were the prices going to be cut?