Huge Valeant price hike on lead poisoning drug sparks anger

[Avril]

Huge Valeant price hike on lead poisoning drug sparks anger

A drug used to treat lead poisoning is causing a toxic reaction among hospitals and poison control centers after Valeant Pharmaceuticals jacked up the price more than 2,700 percent in a single year.

[jimmy101_again]

Hopefully, eventually the market will figure out how to fix this type of corporate excess. Not exactly sure how, but perhaps there needs to be a critical review of how hard it is for another company to get permission to produce a non-patent protected medication since that is what Valeant is counting on to keep competitors from popping up when a low profit generic suddenly becomes a big money maker.

He added that Valeant must purchase sufficient supplies of needed ingredients in advance and this can amount to three to five times more than recent annual sales, which were between $3 million and $5 million last year. “Given [the drug’s] relatively limited shelf life, the company takes substantial carrying cost risk and has written down at its own expense approximately half of purchased quantities in the past few years,” he wrote, adding that list price does not reflect any rebates or discounts that Valeant pays.

Gotta call bullshit on that defense. EDTA is dirt cheap (regardless of the salt form). A pharma-grade preparation will certainly be more expensive than the ultra high-purity lab grade stuff I have used but still the actual cost of the compound is negligible and having to write down half the cost of the purchased material isn't even a rounding error on their costs, especially given their markup is well north of ten fold (1000%).

[Alarm]

IF health care was the government's responsibility, you'd see laws against ��crap like that really quick...

Just saying.

[GenYus234]

Not necessarily, drug companies have lots of money to lobby Congresspersons.

When Congress added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 2003, it prohibited the government from negotiating drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries...

[Mouse]

We could emulate Canada. They're using the same drugs as the US, only for a lot cheaper because the Canadian gov. puts a price cap, limiting how much Pharmaceutical Companies can charge for their products. That and they also have Universal Health Care, which is something I'm totally in favor of. Because regardless of personal morality, humans are sadly mortal creatures who will get sick and hurt and deteriorate, regardless of how many servings of veggies they eat or how many miles they jog every day. It'd be nice to have a healthcare policy that acknowledged that reality.

[Sue]

While I'd far rather live in Canada than the US when it comes to health care I have to be honest and say that some of our prescription meds also come at a very high cost. My sister was on a daily medication last year that cost in excess of $400 a month and that was after her insurance plan kicked in their very significant share. We did the math at the time and I don't really remember it well now but I think we worked it out that without the drug plan her medication would have cost close to $2000 a month. That's a lot of money if you aren't qualified for welfare or similar and if you don't have insurance. I have no idea how people do it.

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by jimmy101_again

Hopefully, eventually the market will figure out how to fix this type of corporate excess. Not exactly sure how, but perhaps there needs to be a critical review of how hard it is for another company to get permission to produce a non-patent protected medication since that is what Valeant is counting on to keep competitors from popping up when a low profit generic suddenly becomes a big money maker.
Gotta call bullshit on that defense. EDTA is dirt cheap (regardless of the salt form). A pharma-grade preparation will certainly be more expensive than the ultra high-purity lab grade stuff I have used but still the actual cost of the compound is negligible and having to write down half the cost of the purchased material isn't even a rounding error on their costs, especially given their markup is well north of ten fold (1000%).

I gotta agree with Jimmy here. This is a dirt cheap chemical with an essentially unlimited shelf life in dry form. I also call shenanigans on their claim that their final formulation has a limited shelf life.

Nick