by DrKSSMDPhD | April 30, 2015 7:14 pm
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HN: read this today from an economist I follow and thought of you
” …..he touched on the progress he is making in challenging what he believes is out-of-control manipulation by the pharmaceutical industry in regards to patent protection. Did you know that it is actually illegal for Medicare to negotiate drug prices? I didn’t. Blame both Bush and Obama and a very powerful lobby. How do you get it written into law that the federal government has to pay whatever price you want? I guess by spending billions in lobbying fees. He mentioned that the US could save $300-$700 billion per year over 10 years if we paid the same prices Canada now pays for the very same drugs. Even more if we paid what Norway pays. Talk about a way to balance the budget!
Watch out for any changes to that law…thats when the nightmare price drop will happen.
I think the crisis will be kicked down the road awhile. Costs will be screamed about real soon. The lawyers in Congress will react in bad ways, like you suggest. Insurance companies start feeling a lot of pain and crying uncle.
A neighbor of mine has that polycystic kidney thing I read about in this thread, and is going next week to have both kidneys removed for a transplant. “It’s all covered by insurance or Medicare.” God knows what the cost is…when someone else is paying, why would one care? And who can argue against saving a life ? But at some point, we will run out of money paying for these things, and our ethics and values will have to square with our checkbooks. Til then…long Dr Kss.
MSKCC owning ATNM
http://www.actiniumpharma.com/products/pipeline/actimab-a/
http://www.actiniumpharma.com/products/pipeline/bismab-a/
http://www.actiniumpharma.com/products/pipeline/preclinical/
If you look at Actinium Pharmaceuticals web site, MSKCC is collaobrating with ATNM in preclinical trials, trials of Actimab-A and Bismab-A. If MSKCC owns ATNM, doesn’t that create a conflict of interest? In the past, has it happened that institutions who are “in bed” with pharma have “shaded” results?
Larry
Well, not really, at least not as I see it. One archetype here would a medical college that buys 10 percent of $AZN and then uses that acquired insidership to place trials for Nexium at its hospital and issues edicts to all its prescribers to write for Nexium wherever possible so that the school gets richer dividends. This would be rapacious and indefensible.
On the other hand, $ATNM has no product. Most spectators including me feel it WILL have one, but that is perhaps 5 years away. $ATNm came together for one reason: to be an organization that gave the 6-7 best minds in stem cell transplant and leukemia who happen to think alike to come together and solve the maddening problem of elderly AML pts who die without ever being candidates for induction. In a sense this idea was born mainly out of Memorial, and Anderson, and to a lesser degree, the Hutch. It is faculty from these places who are strongly backed by their institutions that are the $ATNM brain trust. Institutions have a long history of becoming fiscal participants in legitimate enterprises undertaken by their own faculty. When there is the antecedent of one’s own faculty calling the shots, that to me weighs against the conflict of interest argument. Also, DSMBs are exterior to institutions hosting trials, making shaded results, while not impossible, quite amazingly unlikely.
Dr. Kss, last night the guys and me were discussing the pain plays here:
http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2015/04/the-last-samurai-biotech/comment-page-11/#comment-4451116 Will you provide us your insights on the matter? Best-Best
People love the opiates…one of the reasons they were blockbusters is because one can complain about pain and get them prescribed. My Dad did…he was addicted for a while,
loved them. I expressed my opinion to the doctor, who basically said, “Look, he’s 91 years old. What’s the harm in it ?”
If there were no pleasure, then the “only” market would be for the people who are really in pain, which I think would be a lot fewer than one would think based on the sales of
oxycodon.
Nonetheless…. long TRVN. There’s a need. We need to get a way from drugs that people will lie and steal to get. Didn’t understand the other one as well, and for me one alternate pain play is enough.
^ The inability of Medicare to negotiate for drug prices under Part D is well-known; there was a very public fight in Congress over that very provision when the bill was being debated in 2006.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/20/medicare-part-d-prescription-drug-prices-negotiate-editorials-debates/7943745/
And…a ‘nightmare’??
Whatever our individual pecuniary interest in the pharmaceutical sector*, I don’t see any reason for an American taxpayer to think it’s a good idea for Medicare, the largest buyer of many drugs, to pay list price for them, a multiple of what private insurance, the VA, or even Medicaid does. In what business transaction does a major buyer not bargain for a better price?
Of course non-US-taxpayers may not have the same perspective…different oxes, different goring! ;- )
And…apologies if this belongs in a differently-themed thread.
*obv pharma ≠ biotech
Anamorph: I think we are saying much the same thing. The man made law WILL change coz presently it defies the law of market forces, which take precedent in a capitalist society. The ‘nightmare’ is just for us bio investor’ when that day comes. HN’s worry is that its imminent…..I was saying ‘maybe’….watch the political manoeuvrings. Seems to me that the recent Gilead rumpus was a first shot across the bows.
BTW we can talk about this here coz the main bio thread just moved on http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2015/05/cisco-chang-charlie/?utm_source=Copy+of+51415-2&utm_campaign=DailyUpdate&utm_medium=email
BH & Anamorph; The reason the law is as it is ,,,,,Medicare is without doubt getting a lesser price than if you had some Central Government bureaucrat setting prices and incentives.
At present private enterprise is still functional and does a far better job of watching expenses than someone who thinks money drips off a honey tree,,,look at record of how well central planning has worked where it has been imposed. Government solves problems by throwing money at them,cost be damned and only succeeds because money draws efforts of smart people who want some. Medicine is highly regulated in US and about the only functioning capitalism is in capital markets,ie banking ,insurance and the stock and bond market, where private funds are still pooled. I know of no capitalist government anywhere. Governments in general are becoming more and more centrally controlled
as the Constitution writers feared.
As for Bio being in a bubble I think that to not be the case,,If you track true inflation
the supposed big climb in the market is almost entirely fueled by the actions of the FED
and really is poorly performing for all the dollars being pumped in.
I see nothing imminent but it would be nice to have some strategy to hedge our investments and other than buying Puts or removing funds from the market I cannot think of a good one. I see more danger coming from the Euro than from the dollar.
frank
Well put, Arch 1. I wish we could actually try capitalism in health care, as this would bring the cost way down, but I don’t see the appetite for it in our country. What we call a rose has been slowly morphing into a thistle…
“about the only functioning capitalism is in capital markets,ie banking ,insurance and the stock and bond market, where private funds are still pooled”
It seems to me that if the US taxpayer didn’t bail out the financial system, it would have been close to smoking ruins. There is no real capitalism in the US (though the US is still better than most) — it is basically managed by lawmakers who are indebted to the corporations.
This is why Medicare overpays for drugs. Yes the US could save Billions and the by negotiating prices and Pharma’s would still make Billions.
Now if the US would limit the Direct-to-consumer advertising and let the MDs do the job of prescribing the right (best course of treatment) product everyone would win except the Ad business.
danmcco You will notice I did not say capitalism functioned well…I have no argument with what you say as to bail out but the revolving door of Washington/Wallstreet is a little too cosy. We have to be careful in assigning blame though as it is the “Peoples Choice” of which of the corrupt lead us/follow us. There is never a shortage of the fools ,the stupid, venal,willingly corrupt, corrupted through weakness and ignorance and the outright evil. That is why no form of government can ever yield Utopia,,they all crash on the rocks of human nature,,it is in our genes. As I read a certain part of history of our condition one man managed to stay incorrupt until his fellows had him killed. I think our condition has worsened since.
As for medical ads I could not agree more,,it was a sad day when those were allowed but big money talks. Just need to remember that every thing on TV is designed to sell you something,,,either a product or a viewpoint ,,,Online has potential of being worse.
IMHO
Arch1: As TV gets worse, radio in UK gets far better. Heres a ten minute show I thought might interest yo. Its about on what the American Presidency is based on. Hope it plays on your side of the pond. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tq1s3#auto
We agree on most everything here except ” We have to be careful in assigning blame though as it is the “Peoples Choice” of which of the corrupt lead us/follow us. ” since both of the bought and paid for parties provide the candidates from which Americans must choose. It is a Morton’s fork type dilemma.
danmcco It seems we have no argument at all. When there is no real choice,,,,,,we just have to try to survive & hope for the best. It seems all attempts for man to dominate man end in injury to both.
There is no choice, gentlemen. We get to pick from a plate where everything looks so different but all the choices are quite similar and importantly, they are all made by the same chef (or kitchen full of chefs if you will). Yes, there may be different colors and the ideology may smell very different. But once you eat any of them, you find that the appearance was a fraud and that they all are made from the spineless stink fish, a curious breed that groups themselves into either the red school or the blue school, but regardless, both colors perform for but one master. Chum the water with money and they all feed indistinguishable from one another and worse, they then sh!t on their electorate while each school points their collective fins at the other school as they attempt to pin blame anywhere but within their ranks.
Pausing on the allegory for a moment, there is not a candidate who makes it through the gauntlet who is not thoroughly vetted by the real power brokers and so once in the general election, the choices are all the same. Do not underestimate the power of healthcare lobbyists and big pharma which falls within their ilk. Our elected leaders are quite aware of the fact that Medicare does not have the legal ability to negotiate for drug prices. This was carefully crafted into the law, written by their hand (or more accurately the hand of the lawyers who work for the lobbyists and companies who benefit the most from this law). Just as all the rest of the laws are written. And that is before the same lobbyists get intertwined with the regulators who turn the law into regulations where they are once again, reworded to gain the maximum benefit for the big healthcare corporations and the consumer be damned. This is how American politics works.
So could it change? Well, theoretically, yes. But I would not temper my decision to invest in biotech much based on this. The one constant in the system is that big money talks and the rest of us walk. Unless they separate pharmaceuticals from their moneymaking fundamentals in a huge way, my bets are with the house.
Knock – Knock – – – http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2015/05/cisco-chang-charlie/ WHO?
See ya there! Bet2ALL! Benjamin
Thankyou, Ben. I am catching up after a long week, and just want to say thanks for your thoughtfulness (as in the above redirection to the new post), and for all the work you do in your many contributions.
You’re super Sharon Schreiner and I so appreciate my great Gummy guru friends exciting my cerebral cortex consistently 🙂 Best>>>—Ben—>
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