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$1,000-a-day miracle drug shocks U.S. health care system

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  • $1,000-a-day miracle drug shocks U.S. health care system

    Sovaldi, a new hepatitis C treatment, can cure up to 90 percent of patients within three months. There's just one problem: The drug costs $1,000 a day. That price tag has thrown the biotechnology world into turmoil, as lawmakers and insurance companies complain that Sovaldi's maker is trying to milk desperate patients.

    Doctors are understandably finding it hard to pass over a drug that is so effective. As a result, Sovaldi's manufacturer, Gilead Sciences (GILD), is raking in the dough, while its shares have soared 53 percent over the last year. Sovaldi, in fact, may generate the biggest sales ever for a drug's first year. It could bring in a jaw-dropping $7 billion to $10 billion in sales this year alone, analysts say.

    There are many sides to the Sovaldi story, and here's how the little pill affects them all:

    Patients: There is no vaccine for hepatitis C, and some 3 million Americans are thought to have the virus. Many of them may have been infected through intravenous drug use. Before Sovaldi, patients had to deal with treatments like the injected interferon, which causes such severe flu-like symptoms that many chose to avoid it altogether.

    Insurers: Companies being asked to foot the bill for Sovaldi are panicking. One of the hardest hit, Molina Healthcare (MOH), could see earnings drop by 18 percent because of Sovaldi, The Wall Street Journal reports. The head of Molina, Mario Molina, says that if everyone in the U.S. that had hepatitis C were treated with Sovaldi at list price, the tab would run to $227 billion, according to Forbes. To put that in perspective, the amount spent on all drugs in the U.S. is about $260 billion.

    Doctors: Physicians are getting pressured to ease up on Sovaldi, but it's hard to pass over the drug when it works so well and has few side effects. Why allow someone to suffer when a cure is three months away?

    Gilead: Sovaldi's maker says that even with its high price tag, Sovaldi is cheaper because it cures patients quickly and eliminates a long and expensive treatment using other drugs. Hepatitis C can eventually lead to cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer.

    Taxpayers: More than half of those with hepatitis C are veterans, prisoners, uninsured or on Medicaid, the New York Times reports. That requires taxpayers to pick up the bill.

    Lawmakers: Perhaps motivated by the high costs to taxpayers, lawmakers are pushing Gilead to explain why it charges so much. It doesn't help that Gilead is offering Sovaldi in Egypt at a 99 percent discount to U.S. prices, or about $900 for a full course of treatment.

    Gilead wants to tier its pricing based on a country's per-capita income. So patients in the U.K would pay about $57,000, Reuters reports, while Germans would pay $66,000 and Americans are paying $84,000.

    For now, Gilead has a pretty tight lock on the market, but competitors such as AbbVie (ABBV) are expected to debut treatments later this year. But Congress has no power over individual drug costs, so it's unlikely that all the carping will lead to anything, writes Nathan Sadeghi-Nejad in Forbes. There are plenty of ironies here, not the least of which is that medical innovation is revealing the shortcomings of our health care system.

    "The drug is a microcosm of the U.S. healthcare system's structural problems," Sadeghi-Nejad adds. "We want big scientific advances, but are not prepared to handle the costs of a drug so effective and tolerable that every patient wants it at once."


    The treatment for hepatitis C is so effective that patients and doctors are clamoring for it, but heath insurers are balking at the steep costs
    I wear a Fez. Fez-es are cool

  • #2
    Good for Gilead.

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    • #3
      Waiting for Democrats to come out and condemn this.
      I wear a Fez. Fez-es are cool

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      • #4
        This is part of the problem with our healthcare system. Drug companies charge almost nothing overseas and then ass rape americans because we have become so reliant on insurance and make so much more money, then insurance wont pay for a pre existing condition (or wouldnt). It is socialism at its finest; make the rich pay more so the poor can pay less.
        I don't like Republicans, but I really FUCKING hate Democrats.


        Sex with an Asian woman is great, but 30 minutes later you're horny again.

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        • #5
          You also have to look at the regulatory costs here. Unless you grease the FDA's palms all along the way, you're not getting approved. I think it's a decent "fuck you" to the federal government.
          I wear a Fez. Fez-es are cool

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          • #6
            How is it a "fuck you" to the feds? They arent hurt by the costs at all, just the insured, the uninsured, and the taxpayers.
            I don't like Republicans, but I really FUCKING hate Democrats.


            Sex with an Asian woman is great, but 30 minutes later you're horny again.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by LANTIRN View Post
              How is it a "fuck you" to the feds? They arent hurt by the costs at all, just the insured, the uninsured, and the taxpayers.
              Because Obamacare requires everyone be covered which means all of a sudden, those insurance companies are going to have to pay for this which means they're going to hurt and quite a few backed Obama and Democrats. When they hurt, they stop giving to D's and punish politicians that put this in place.

              Takes a bit but when you poison the well, eventually it moves up to the top of the food chain
              I wear a Fez. Fez-es are cool

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              • #8
                Talk to anyone in the drug business, the first pill that they sell costs billions of dollars. Why? Because of government mandated horseshit, that's why.

                Sounds like a lot of the people with Hep C with the exceptionsof the veterans are basically democrats. Sounds like they are getting what they love to vote for, IE Big Government.
                Originally posted by racrguy
                What's your beef with NPR, because their listeners are typically more informed than others?
                Originally posted by racrguy
                Voting is a constitutional right, overthrowing the government isn't.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Forever_frost View Post
                  Because Obamacare requires everyone be covered which means all of a sudden, those insurance companies are going to have to pay for this which means they're going to hurt and quite a few backed Obama and Democrats. When they hurt, they stop giving to D's and punish politicians that put this in place.

                  Takes a bit but when you poison the well, eventually it moves up to the top of the food chain
                  Hadn't looked at it that way, but we did have the same problem before Obamacare. Every country I have been to with a lower standard of living has cheaper medical drugs than the US. Granted there are probably multiple reasons for all of this and I am not trying to blame all of it on one single cause, but it has been a problem for a while. That seemed to be one of the biggest complaints from both sides during all the healthcare debates; costs are too high. I do believe insurance is probably the root cause, but like Broncojohnny just said, the government regulations for testing new medicines isn't helping either.
                  I don't like Republicans, but I really FUCKING hate Democrats.


                  Sex with an Asian woman is great, but 30 minutes later you're horny again.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    lol gilead. The dark tower

                    Seems to me like they could charge $10k for it if they want to. Its theirs they own it and they are the ones that put all the risk and sacrifice into developing it

                    Plus it will go down in price. Generics will be cheaper and other companies will eventually get around the patents and patents eventually expire
                    WH

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                    • #11
                      Whats to stop an american from flying overseas to get it?

                      THey would have to pay out of pocket and not let the goverment pay for it that's what.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by 03mustangdude View Post
                        Whats to stop an american from flying overseas to get it?

                        THey would have to pay out of pocket and not let the goverment pay for it that's what.
                        It is still a socialist pricing scheme that is aimed at wealth redistribution and wealth inequality. The left would love for this to catch on. Make $100,000 per year? Now your insurance, your car, your house, and everything you buy at the grocery store will cost more than soneone who makes $30,000 per year.
                        I don't like Republicans, but I really FUCKING hate Democrats.


                        Sex with an Asian woman is great, but 30 minutes later you're horny again.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          See, if I had the cure to cancer and AIDS, the cure would have a sliding pay scale on it as well based on how you vote.
                          I wear a Fez. Fez-es are cool

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                          • #14
                            I also think that they're charging the US more because, well, "Hey USA, go fuck yourself". We go all over the world pissing people off and shit like this is to be expected.
                            "You wouldn't know what crazy was if Charles Manson was eating Fruit Loops on your front porch"

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                            • #15
                              Every facet of healthcare here is broken. From the doctors, insurance companies to the stupid government for getting involved. The big drug and insurance companies are at the root of the problem.......then comes our government, trying to unfuck all the dysfunction that has gotten so bad in the last decade.

                              Well guess what.....its worse.

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