Thoughts on drug cost.

G

grover99

US Veteran
Bronze Supporter
Joined
Apr 20, 2012
Messages
1,522
Reaction score
3,406
Location
Missouri
Having time on my hands and sort of remembering my grade school math I figured that the prescription I just picked up for eye drops would cost $64,000 a gal if one could buy it that way. Would love to know what it cost the drug company to make the stuff. I am sure that it will be much less. Maybe $200 a gal.:mad:
 
Register to hide this ad
DWalt said:
I am now using a toenail fungus medication. A 0.101 ounce tube of it costs me $60. I think that comes close to a $1.2 Million per gallon cost.
Click to expand...
I do hope it works.
As an aside some years back I dealt with contact dermatitis that went fungal. Any fungus doesn't like a change in ph so I found some generic povidone iodine (Betadine), mixed it with hot as I could stand water till it was the color of iced tea and soaked my feet until it cooled. 2 or 3 times and my feet cleared along with the yellowish tint to my toenails.
Dumped it in a spray bottle and used it on the black mold on my Confederate Jasmine vine. Neither instance of creeping crud ever reappeared.
 
DWalt, go to your local health food store and get you a bottle of tea tree oil for that toenail fungus. It worked wonders for both my son and my wife and it didn't take very long to do it either. You can google it if you want.
 
When I CAN GET IT....

Several of my medications are difficult to get, so at times I've had to go without. Never mind the price. Don't forget that we have the greatest medical system in the world. We should, we sure do pay for it. Even after paying scads for insurance.:mad:
 
fiasconva said:
DWalt, go to your local health food store and get you a bottle of tea tree oil for that toenail fungus. It worked wonders for both my son and my wife and it didn't take very long to do it either. You can google it if you want.
Click to expand...

My youngest is "one" with the essential oils. She says Tea Tree Oil is highly effective but you must cut it as applying it directly can burn.

She takes a 4oz bottle and puts 10 drops each of TT oil and clove oil and tops it off with carrier oil (fractionated oils such as coconut, jojoba, olive).

She says lemongrass oil will keep nails healthy.

She also said a little goes a long way.
 
Quaker State 30 weight oil will work too, but you'll break your neck slipping and falling.
 
fiasconva said:
DWalt, go to your local health food store and get you a bottle of tea tree oil for that toenail fungus. It worked wonders for both my son and my wife and it didn't take very long to do it either. You can google it if you want.
Click to expand...

How long is "not very long"
 
When I run out of the high priced medication I have, I am going to try Vick's Vaporub. Allegedly it works to clear up fungal toenails. There is also an oral antifungal medication but I have read it can cause liver damage. I don't need any of that.
 
DWalt said:
When I run out of the high priced medication I have, I am going to try Vick's Vaporub. Allegedly it works to clear up fungal toenails. There is also an oral antifungal medication but I have read it can cause liver damage. I don't need any of that.
Click to expand...

FYI, it cost me less than $250 to have my large toenail removed. I don't miss it at all. It was growing more up than out.
 
For those of you with expensive prescriptions, go to Mark Cubin's
Costplus pharmacy on line.
You can check and see if your prescription is available on the site.
The savings you can get there are shocking.

Costplus is just that. Their cost plus $5.00 shipping.
I get several prescriptions there. An example: CVS $164.48, Costplus $8.00 plus $5.00 shipping .
It's worth a look.
 
Perhaps a Different Perspective

What is costs to "make the stuff," is actually a very small fraction of the real cost of a pharmaceutical.

Full disclosure; I was a state government affairs director for a very large pharma company for lots of years. I am not a lawyer but some of us with tech backgrounds reported to the general law department of this large pharmaceutical company (I mostly represented their crop protection products division).

Attending the general law dept. meetings was highly informative with regard to the challenges pharma has in areas of R&D, patent protection, litigation, liability, costs and conduct of clinical trials, regulatory hurdles which can be virtually insurmountable, technology transfer to physicians, and marketing. The "D" in R&D for "development" was always the most impressive phase it seemed to me. It's not uncommon for a new drug to cost well over $650M to get to final clinical trials and only one in 500 get that far but still incur costs along the way to failure. The Food & Drug Administration is no pushover and discovery chemists don't grow on trees.

The law dept. seemed mostly concerned with patent protection and liability issues. There were 100 attorneys on the payroll and they were all busy.

Some observations: the more widely prescribed the drug the cheaper it was over time, block-busters commanded premiums, patent life was seldom long enough (20 years from application date - which was long before anything was sold) to recoup the investment on anything but block-busters or very widely prescribed medicines.

Generics, available after patent protection expires, are generally cheaper only because the generic manufacturer can petition and access the development history, clinical trials results, and the manufacturing process of the original inventor company - essentially the FDA registration package as a whole. That saves millions upon millions of dollars that the inventor had to bear, and the federally arbitrated price for access to this necessary information seldom adds much to the inventor's bottom line.

It was never openly discussed but it seemed drug prices were generally higher in the US because we could bear it due to more widespread insurance and affluence compared to third-world countries or those with active pharma price controls.

Remember they are publicly traded/owned companies that must return on their owner's investment. Capitalism? You bet. Most of us really wouldn't want them to go away would we?
 
Last edited:
TXbryan is quite correct. I spent over 50 years in drug R&D, both in the pharma industry and at NIH as a biological chemist. The major costs of drug development are at the "D" end which is effectively controlled by the requirements for safety and efficacy, not helped by the almost complete replacement of scientists and physicians who used to run pharma companies, by MBAs who cannot even spell the simplest names suggested for a drug and want an ROI in 3 months!!!. A relatively recent example of the problems with "D costs" was the withdrawal of a new antibiotic that was approved quite recently and within 2 years was pulled as the total income was $98 M versus the "D" costs of >$400 M.
 
biku324 said:
Only here do we pay these prices. Drugs are far cheaper everywhere else in the world, rich like the EU, or poor, like Somalia.
Click to expand...

I think its a matter of access to our "Insurance" in the big world of the "Medical Industrial Complex". Just make sure they keep us coming back! (lots of stones overturned the last 4 years.)
 
Last edited:
A recent drug story not associated with toenail fungus. About two months ago, my doctor wanted me to go on a certain drug which was not new. I took his prescription to the local CVS (which handles my health plan drugs). The pharmacist told me that he would fill it with a generic version of the same drug, and my OOP would be about half that of the name brand. About two weeks later I got a letter from my carrier stating that the generic drug was not on their formulary and they would not cover it in the future, only the name brand. I called the insurer and asked why they would cover the high-priced name brand drug but not the generic version. All I got was a long version of "I don't know, but it is not on your formulary." I wrote several letters asking why it wasn't on the formulary, and got nothing but gobbledygook for an answer. I brought it up with my doctor, and he said that instead of a prescription for 5mg tablets, he would write another prescription for 10mg tablets, which I could simply cut in half. By doing that, my OOP cost for the 10mg name brand tablets (which I cut in half) is now effectively somewhat less than for the 5mg generic version. By some quirk of the drug industry, the cost of 5mg and 10mg name brand tablets are identical. Maybe others can do the same by simply buying a pill cutter and save on the OOP. In my case, it is saving me $25/month.
 
Last edited:
Cajunlawyer, my wife said she used it twice a day for about a week or so and it killed the fungus. It left a white spot on the nail and it went away when the nail grew out. That is what took a while. A lot of those Rx meds seem to take a lot longer to do what the tea tree oil did. She used it full strength and it didn't burn or anything.
 
DWalt said:
A recent drug story not associated with toenail fungus. About two months ago, my doctor wanted me to go on a certain drug which was not new. I took his prescription to the local CVS (which handles my health plan drugs). The pharmacist told me that he would fill it with a generic version of the same drug, and my OOP would be about half that of the name brand. About two weeks later I got a letter from my carrier stating that the generic drug was not on their formulary and they would not cover it in the future, only the name brand. I called the insurer and asked why they would cover the high-priced name brand drug but not the generic version. All I got was a long version of "I don't know, but it is not on your formulary." I wrote several letters asking why it wasn't on the formulary, and got nothing but gobbledygook for an answer. I brought it up with my doctor, and he said that instead of a prescription for 5mg tablets, he would write another prescription for 10mg tablets, which I could simply cut in half. By doing that, my OOP cost for the 10mg name brand tablets (which I cut in half) is now effectively somewhat less than for the 5mg generic version. By some quirk of the drug industry, the cost of 5mg and 10mg name brand tablets are identical. Maybe others can do the same by simply buying a pill cutter and save on the OOP. In my case, it is saving me $25/month.
Click to expand...

Not all pills can be cut. Some especially ones that say E.R (Extended Release) can not be cut. Most any pill that is cutable has a score mark on it.

Not a pharmacist by any means but a long time user of many (Legal) kinds of meds over the years.
 
NYlakesider said:
Not all pills can be cut. Some especially ones that say E.R (Extended Release) can not be cut. Most any pill that is cutable has a score mark on it.

Not a pharmacist by any means but a long time user of many (Legal) kinds of meds over the years.
Click to expand...
I asked the pharmacist about that. He said cutting was OK. None of my prescription drugs at present are ERs.
 
Dave_n said:
TXbryan is quite correct. I spent over 50 years in drug R&D, both in the pharma industry and at NIH as a biological chemist. The major costs of drug development are at the "D" end which is effectively controlled by the requirements for safety and efficacy, not helped by the almost complete replacement of scientists and physicians who used to run pharma companies, by MBAs who cannot even spell the simplest names suggested for a drug and want an ROI in 3 months!!!. A relatively recent example of the problems with "D costs" was the withdrawal of a new antibiotic that was approved quite recently and within 2 years was pulled as the total income was $98 M versus the "D" costs of >$400 M.
Click to expand...

Colchicine has been used since 1500 BC when the Egyptians first referred to it in medical texts. It's 7 to 35 cents per 0.6 mg (0.5 ml in other countries) tablet everywhere else in the world but the US, where it is $2 to $6 per tablet. Do pharma companies pay the descendants of Amenhotep I a R&D fee?

Just one of hundreds of examples. Hundreds.

ASPE Executive Summary

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) contracted with RAND Health Care to analyze IQVIA MIDAS data on U.S. prescription drug prices in comparison to drug prices in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Key takeaways are summarized below.

• In 2022, U.S. prices across all drugs (brands and generics) were nearly three times as high as prices in 33 OECD comparison countries. For every dollar paid in other countries for drugs, consumers in the U.S. pay $2.78. The gap is widening over time as U.S. drug prices grow faster than drug prices in
other countries and the mix of drugs changes.

• U.S. prices for brand drugs were 422 percent of prices in the comparison countries, or at least 322 percent if we adjust for estimated rebates in the U.S., but not for estimated rebates in other countries (for which data are generally unavailable).

https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/...7e87446ae/international-price-comparisons.pdf

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP Committee) Majority Staff uncovered how three U.S. pharmaceutical companies—Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb—profit at the expense of the American people. Key findings include:

• The pharmaceutical industry is enormously profitable, with companies like Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb raking in massive sums of money.

o In 2022, Johnson & Johnson made $17.9 billion in profits and its CEO received $27.6 million in compensation. That year, the company spent $17.8 billion on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation, compared to just $14.6 billion on research and development (R&D). In other words, the company spent $3.2 billion more enriching executives and stockholders than finding new cures.

o In 2022, Bristol Myers Squibb made $6.3 billion in profits and its former CEO made $41.4 million in compensation. That year, the company spent $12.7 billion on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation, compared to just $9.5 billion on R&D. Just like Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb spent $3.2 billion more enriching executives and stockholders than finding new cures.

o In 2022, Merck made $14.5 billion in profits and its CEO made $52.5 million in compensation. That year, the company spent over $7 billion on dividends and executive compensation, and $13.6 billion on R&D. If Merck's cancer drug Keytruda was its own company, its 2022 sales would rival McDonald's annual
revenue, and exceed the revenue of the hotel chain Marriott.

https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/big_pharmas_business_model_report.pdf
 
Last edited:
What do you suppose all those slick drug commercials cost...and who do you think pays for them? You know, the ones with the catchy slogans and jingles, and the narrator reading all the possible side effects while telling you to "ask your doctor" about it...

Do you think your doctor doesn't already know about a given drug? Of course he does...so why advertise it? There's only one reason: to get you, the consumer, to ask him to prescribe it.

I don't recall seeing ads like this in any other country I've visited.

As G. Gordon Liddy used to intone on his radio show..."Oh ye suckers!"
 
TXBryan said:
What is costs to "make the stuff," is actually a very small fraction of the real cost of a pharmaceutical.

Full disclosure; I was a state government affairs director for a very large pharma company for lots of years. I am not a lawyer but some of us with tech backgrounds reported to the general law department of this large pharmaceutical company (I mostly represented their crop protection products division).

Attending the general law dept. meetings was highly informative with regard to the challenges pharma has in areas of R&D, patent protection, litigation, liability, costs and conduct of clinical trials, regulatory hurdles which can be virtually insurmountable, technology transfer to physicians, and marketing. The "D" in R&D for "development" was always the most impressive phase it seemed to me. It's not uncommon for a new drug to cost well over $650M to get to final clinical trials and only one in 500 get that far but still incur costs along the way to failure. The Food & Drug Administration is no pushover and discovery chemists don't grow on trees.

The law dept. seemed mostly concerned with patent protection and liability issues. There were 100 attorneys on the payroll and they were all busy.

Some observations: the more widely prescribed the drug the cheaper it was over time, block-busters commanded premiums, patent life was seldom long enough (20 years from application date - which was long before anything was sold) to recoup the investment on anything but block-busters or very widely prescribed medicines.

Generics, available after patent protection expires, are generally cheaper only because the generic manufacturer can petition and access the development history, clinical trials results, and the manufacturing process of the original inventor company - essentially the FDA registration package as a whole. That saves millions upon millions of dollars that the inventor had to bear, and the federally arbitrated price for access to this necessary information seldom adds much to the inventor's bottom line.

It was never openly discussed but it seemed drug prices were generally higher in the US because we could bear it due to more widespread insurance and affluence compared to third-world countries or those with active pharma price controls.

Remember they are publicly traded/owned companies that must return on their owner's investment. Capitalism? You bet. Most of us really wouldn't want them to go away would we?
Click to expand...

You stated it all very well.
The costs to do the R&D, create, test, produce and bring a new drug to market, are HUGE.
And once it gets to market the liability costs are also HUGE.
Why do we (Americans) pay so much more than the rest of the world for these new wonder drugs?
Because we can, and we will. We have the money - the rest of the world doesn't.
So, we bear those costs and the rest of the world benefits - because they can't bear those costs and let's face it, making money is the primary driver behind creating new drugs. Altruism is a secondary driver - at best.
Big pharma is BIG BUSINESS. They have shareholders who invest their money into these companies, and those shareholders expect a good return on their investment.
That's the nature of capitalism - and it is a terrible economic system - until you compare it to all the others...
 
Last edited:
Drug pricing is not so much about production cost but the research and development costs. It is not uncommon for it to take 10 years to come up with a new pill after spending hundreds of millions of dollars.
Sometimes drug companies spend that kind of time money on development of. New drug only to find that cannot be made safe or effective, so they drop the project and take the loss.
They also pay a lot of money for liability insurance and settlement of lawsuits, even when the drug in question was used improperly.
 
Last edited:
biku324 said:
Colchicine has been used since 1500 BC when the Egyptians first referred to it in medical texts. It's 7 to 35 cents per 0.6 mg (0.5 ml in other countries) tablet everywhere else in the world but the US, where it is $2 to $6 per tablet. Do pharma companies pay the descendants of Amenhotep I a R&D fee?

Just one of hundreds of examples. Hundreds.

ASPE Executive Summary

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) contracted with RAND Health Care to analyze IQVIA MIDAS data on U.S. prescription drug prices in comparison to drug prices in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Key takeaways are summarized below.

• In 2022, U.S. prices across all drugs (brands and generics) were nearly three times as high as prices in 33 OECD comparison countries. For every dollar paid in other countries for drugs, consumers in the U.S. pay $2.78. The gap is widening over time as U.S. drug prices grow faster than drug prices in
other countries and the mix of drugs changes.

• U.S. prices for brand drugs were 422 percent of prices in the comparison countries, or at least 322 percent if we adjust for estimated rebates in the U.S., but not for estimated rebates in other countries (for which data are generally unavailable).

https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/...7e87446ae/international-price-comparisons.pdf

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP Committee) Majority Staff uncovered how three U.S. pharmaceutical companies—Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb—profit at the expense of the American people. Key findings include:

• The pharmaceutical industry is enormously profitable, with companies like Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb raking in massive sums of money.

o In 2022, Johnson & Johnson made $17.9 billion in profits and its CEO received $27.6 million in compensation. That year, the company spent $17.8 billion on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation, compared to just $14.6 billion on research and development (R&D). In other words, the company spent $3.2 billion more enriching executives and stockholders than finding new cures.

o In 2022, Bristol Myers Squibb made $6.3 billion in profits and its former CEO made $41.4 million in compensation. That year, the company spent $12.7 billion on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation, compared to just $9.5 billion on R&D. Just like Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb spent $3.2 billion more enriching executives and stockholders than finding new cures.

o In 2022, Merck made $14.5 billion in profits and its CEO made $52.5 million in compensation. That year, the company spent over $7 billion on dividends and executive compensation, and $13.6 billion on R&D. If Merck's cancer drug Keytruda was its own company, its 2022 sales would rival McDonald's annual
revenue, and exceed the revenue of the hotel chain Marriott.

https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/big_pharmas_business_model_report.pdf
Click to expand...

Pharmaceutical executive pay is probably in line with what General Motors executives and professional sports players and executives make.
Nobody complains about those.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
Works of art…
Replies
0
Views
218
Model29-26.5
M
G
part D insurance 2025
Replies
26
Views
2K
CalifEd
C
chief38
My experience & opinion as to costs of reloading now days.
3 4 5
Replies
131
Views
8K
TaxPhd
T
chief38
Gardening - - a return to the old ways!
Replies
9
Views
957
charlie sherrill
C
NYlakesider
Delivery methods!
Replies
26
Views
784
jimmyj
jimmyj

Latest posts

Back
Top