<story><title>The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is recently expensive</title><url>https://prospect.org/article/insulin-racket</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>toyg</author><text>&amp;gt; [monthly] $43,354.73&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s half a million per year. At that price, unless syprine&amp;#x27;s manufacturing process requires digging diamonds, one could probably save money by hiring a dedicated chemist (100k p&amp;#x2F;y or thereabout) and giving them the necessary money to make the drug just for one.&lt;p&gt;If I were an insurance company, I&amp;#x27;d consider buying a small pharma outfit and target it at these orphan drugs just &lt;i&gt;to save money&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>maire</author><text>This is an issue beyond insulin. I hope they don&amp;#x27;t just focus on insulin.&lt;p&gt;Generics do not work to lower prices on drugs because there is price fixing between companies. Price fixing is illegal in the US but does not seem to be enforced.&lt;p&gt;I discovered this because my sister in law has a rare disease and she depends on a rare drug called syprine. Her drug costs went from 177.00 a month to $8000.00 a month where it hovered there for a year, then it went up to $43,354.73 a month.&lt;p&gt;The US funds the manufacture and research on drugs for rare diseases but only while the drug is under patent. Once the drug is out of patent then there is no regulation. These are called &amp;quot;orphan drugs.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It turns out that Valeant (the maker of syprine) was guilty of price fixing and was under investigation by the federal trade commission. The case went all the way to the supreme court which came down against Valeant. The end result seems to be nothing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>btilly</author><text>&lt;i&gt;If I were an insurance company, I&amp;#x27;d consider buying a small pharma outfit and target it at these orphan drugs just to save money.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here is why you&amp;#x27;d rethink that position.&lt;p&gt;By law, insurance companies have to spend 80-85% of their revenue on patient care.  Which means that their potential profits are limited by medical expenses paid out.  As long as they have properly projected and accounted for the medical expenses in their business model, they therefore have a financial incentive to let expenses be high.</text></comment>
<story><title>The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is recently expensive</title><url>https://prospect.org/article/insulin-racket</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>toyg</author><text>&amp;gt; [monthly] $43,354.73&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s half a million per year. At that price, unless syprine&amp;#x27;s manufacturing process requires digging diamonds, one could probably save money by hiring a dedicated chemist (100k p&amp;#x2F;y or thereabout) and giving them the necessary money to make the drug just for one.&lt;p&gt;If I were an insurance company, I&amp;#x27;d consider buying a small pharma outfit and target it at these orphan drugs just &lt;i&gt;to save money&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>maire</author><text>This is an issue beyond insulin. I hope they don&amp;#x27;t just focus on insulin.&lt;p&gt;Generics do not work to lower prices on drugs because there is price fixing between companies. Price fixing is illegal in the US but does not seem to be enforced.&lt;p&gt;I discovered this because my sister in law has a rare disease and she depends on a rare drug called syprine. Her drug costs went from 177.00 a month to $8000.00 a month where it hovered there for a year, then it went up to $43,354.73 a month.&lt;p&gt;The US funds the manufacture and research on drugs for rare diseases but only while the drug is under patent. Once the drug is out of patent then there is no regulation. These are called &amp;quot;orphan drugs.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It turns out that Valeant (the maker of syprine) was guilty of price fixing and was under investigation by the federal trade commission. The case went all the way to the supreme court which came down against Valeant. The end result seems to be nothing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Xelbair</author><text>Sadly it is not about how much manufacturing and research costs.&lt;p&gt;But about how much they can profit from it.</text></comment>