Big Pharma, Meet Big Media
 

I just saw a commercial on television that really takes the cake! By now I'm used to seeing ads for all sorts of pharmaceuticals, including some to treat conditions we didn't know we had ("restless leg syndrome", anyone?) but this one?? WTF??

Are you ready for the "Getaround Knee"? Hey, doc! I want me a couple o' them fancy new knees!

I'm old enough to remember a time when it was illegal to market prescription drugs and surgical appliances to the general public. I think it's still illegal in most countries. :rolleyes:

John

Did you read about GlaxoSmithKline's $3 Billion settlement for fraud in the marketing of its products?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...IJW_story.html

"Shakedown" Joe Barton will be around to apologize to GSK shortly............:rolleyes:

Sure did! The marketing of adult strength drugs to children is enough to get them kicked out of the country (they're British), as far as I'm concerned. Blue posted about this when it broke, I think.

John

They met long ago, the high prices have nowt to do with research, they are for the four and five page adverts in all the magazines. Drug companies only keep a presence here so they have access to NIH and university research.

If we combined the return of the ban on the consumer advertising of prescription drugs with the profit cap in the Affordable Care Act.......

Well, the mind boggles at the savings we'd see!

John

Is it not farcical, you cannot advertise liquor but you can advertise drugs whoes side effects can be fatal.

Probably a side benefit is that if a customer asks for the latest concoction they saw an ad for means malpractice would be a harder deal to prove. The list of side effects of these new formulations boggles the mind. Sounds like a suicide pill. I see a similar tack used by the cigarette companys. The classic who me? Thay asked for it defense.

Yes I did.

This is the tip of the iceberg. I think in 50-100 years people will look back at this era of insane prescription use and realize how dangerous we lived.

Big pharma is probably the most immoral and unethical bushiness on the planet.

Are you liberal screwballs for real, or do you just post to see your words in print ?

That immoral and unethical Pharmaceutical Company's has added many years to those with Aids, Cancer and Heart Disease, not to mention the other diseases and ailments that they have discovered treatment for.

Why don't you screwballs just put these unethical and immoral companies out of business, by refusing to use any of their products ?

As for Research, thousands of compounds are tried for treatment of a disease, hundreds of thousands of tests are conducted on each compound. Those that show promise continue to be tested, eventually an animals, that I agree with you should not die to save many in our society, then they proceed to human testing where the efficacy of the drug is calculated, and the side effects on humans are learned. And if they pass these tests they proceed to larger human testing.

And as side effects are your problem, there are many products in nature that produce side effects on many humans, peanuts, tomatoes, strawberries, wheat, etc. Some even kill !

Yes show those Pharmaceutical Companies you will not support them, stop taking your drugs, even those little blue pills, shut down their cash !

Am I to understand that you're OK with their business practices?

There are many Pharmaceutical Companies, and I am sure that not all of them are objectionable.

But I do understand that if I spent millions of dollars to develop a product that I would want to advertise it before I lost my patent and or exclusivity of the product.

No finn, I do not approve of all the practices of some of the Pharmaceutical Companies, if I knew all of the practices of every company, I may not agree with them either.

Not to say that pharmaceutical manufacturers do no research but most of the real research is done by the NIH, CDC and American universities (with government funding). Much of the research that pharma does is figuring out how to change one molecule or one ingredient in a particular product, without materially affecting its efficacy, so that they can get a patent on a "new" drug. They do this when the patent on one of their drugs is about to expire or when they want to cut into the market share of a competitor with a "hot" new drug.

John

Saw a very interesting documentary recently wherein they interviewed former GSK employees in Britain, including the "whistleblower" in this case.

It seems management tried to introduce incentive for reseachers to "create new drugs" at an accelerated pace. You see, the old, heavily regulated bureaucracy method wherein the drugs had to be approved by internal regulators as well as government regulators and had to actually have a proven purpose was keeping the profit margin too thin to keep the shareholders happy. Slowing down the process, as it were.

So, the boardroom geniuses hatched a plan to eliminate the internal bureaucracy and form teams of researchers tasked with specific diseases/conditions to cure. When a team acheived it's goal, cured a disease and the British government approved it for use, everyone on that team would recieve a fat bonus. The team them moves on to the next disease. Sounds great, Huh?

Unless, of course your team was tasked with curing something for which there still is no cure, twenty years later and, unfortunately, probably never will be. Like diseases and conditions attributed to advanced age for instance.

Or, you run out of diseases to cure.......

Then you start "inventing diseases" to market the useless drugs that were created along the way, rather than scrap them and take the loss.

You see, Her Majesties government, (And I think it is the same for the FDA.) only tests drugs to see if they can be used safely at moderate usage levels, not to see if they actually do what the manufacturer claims..........

Hence the mess we have today.

As I recall, one of the quotes was something along the lines of, "Aspirin is a great drug. But everybody makes it so the margin is very thin. In order to make the most money you have rush a new drug through and be the first to market with the latest thing. You worry about whether it actually works or not, later on."

Great, Huh?

Dave

Yep, that is exactly right.

Dave

You would be wrong Bill.

Even more common and without cost is to take two drugs with expired patents and put them in one and get a new patent. Doctors just go along and prescribe the new one instead of the two old ones.

Pharmaceutical Company CEO's have a special space saved for them down below when they get there.

I just went through a manufactured shortage by them because the drug is now generic. Pushed the new BIG BUCKS $$$$$ drug but I didn't bite.


Barney

I'm sure that there are lots of people who work for the drug companies that really want to improve people's lives. Many of them were probably started with that in mind. However, modern capitalism is such a corrupting influence that it can overwhelm the good that companies do. When the ultimate goal is maximizing profits, other laudable goals fall by the wayside. When the company places a priority on making a new patent rather than making a new drug, it is no longer in the business of improving lives, it is in the business of making money.

Regards,

D-Ray

Well John,

I would start writing the FDA, after all they approve all new drugs. And if they are approving drugs like that, then call your Representatives and tell them to stop the FDA from doing business in that manner.

Anyone who requires prescription drugs can tell you that the caosts have risen at three or four times the rate of inflation.

And was it not strange that Prilosec was a prescription drug until the patent ran out then it became available over the counter.

As to complaining to the FDA you would be better of shouting up a dead horse's arse, they are in the pocket of Big Pharma. Remember how they tried to stop people from bringing the same drugs, made by the same companies, in from Canada saying we could not trust them, utter bullshit. Florence's BP prescription just increased from $400 for a 90 day supply to $500.

In the 19th century doctors used leeches to bleed their patients, now they use Big Pharma.

What we really need to do is take all the higher management from Big Pharma and throw the lot of them in jail.

From exactly where do you think our representatives get the money for election time?:rolleyes:

That is why I posted this post Merrylander, and you answered all the questions !

Everyone has their hands out, and they are greedy and want all that they can get.

D, I tend to agree, but how does one fix it without killing the golden goose?

Pete

Tighten up the Patent Laws. I think price controls would be in order too. The pharmacological research is already largely socialized to the benefit of the drug companies. The drug companies also benefit from billions of medicare and other government dollars going to purchase medications. That should justify some influence in pricing.

Regards,

D-Ray

Well there is some hanky panky going on with the middlemen (God that's all this country does - middlemen). Florence phoned the new Walgren's that opened about a year ago - same prescription the old drugstore wanted $500 for Walgren's will sell it to her for $283.

So it is not only the foreign Pharmas but our own countrymen screwing us. I guess I was right, this place does run on the Jack System.:rolleyes:

Oops my error it is the new Wegmans that just opened here, not Walgren's

The government lets the VA negotiate price with the drug companies but would not let them do so under Medicare Part D.

While we're at it, we could amend Medicare Part D.

John

"...

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_258285.html

Pete

I know. A stupid attempt to mollify Republicans and the industry.

John

Insane is a better interpretation I'd say.

I am beginning to believe that it is the pharma wholsalers who are the problem. Here we have one drugstore selling a prescription drug at $500 while another sells it at $283 - and that is very, very close to the Canadian price. There is something rotten in the woodpile methinks.

That says quite a bit about our antiquated system of patents IMHO and its current lack of ability to distinguish between newness and lack thereof.

The Pharma industry, like all industries, has both good and bad actors; however, their ability to bring useful products to market has helped more than hindered IMHO. Furthermore, at some level virtually all technological advancement can be traced to seminal research at academic institutions. In Pharma, the big mistakes get publically aired and damage the industry's PR to a higher degree than in, say, the computer industry. I suspect that this is a result of the inherent stakes involved and our collective notion that medicine and health are different economically than other technological industries. That is, health and medicine appeal to our altruistic spirit and our concomitant notions of fairness and justice.

It's nice seeing the market work to lower the cost. :D

The ban on advertising liquor is self imposed by the liquor industry. You will notice that they do advertise around the holidays.

I wonder.

There is no data for us to have a definitive answer on this as big pharma is to efficient at dismissing all the deaths their products cause.

There are changes in Medicare part D in the ACA to close the donut hole. I doubt Medicare will be negotiating drug prices anytime soon because big pharma had to put their stamp of approval on the ACA just like the health insurance companies did. Otherwise they would have money bombed it out of existence with negative advertising.

Sounds sensible to me. Everyone works to make money. But, where do we cross the line from making good money from doing good things to making astonishing amounts of money by doing whatever it takes to get our hands on it?

Personally, I think all too many of us crossed that line long ago. The sad and disturbing part is that some of us seem to have decided that's the way it's supposed to be.

Dave