$566,800/gallon for antifreeze

The optometrist prescribed Systane Balance (eyedrops). I paid $17.97 for 20 ml. The only active ingredient is propylene glycol, .6% : $566,803.75/gallon.

Car antifreeze doesn’t have to go through FDA approval, which is expensive. It doesn’t have to be specially processed to filter out poisons or anything else that might hurt your eye. It’s sold in large quantities and so it enjoys a volume discount. It doesn’t need safety-seal packaging to make sure some moron doesn’t tamper with it to hurt people.

Personally, I want all of that in place for stuff I squirt in my eyes. Unregulated medication can injure and kill people.

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Amen to that! @RandomTroll in addition to what @shadowfax said, all eye products must be made in a sterile environment compliant with USP 797 guidelines (so think IV hoods like they use in a hospital) as well.

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Keep in mind you’re paying for more than the active ingredient. It’s not as if the packaging and inactive ingredients are free.

And inactive ingredients can impact the efficacy of the product, which is why generics don’t always work exactly the same as name-brands. The active ingredients are the same, but the fillers can change how they interact with your body.

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And keep in mind PROPYENE glycol is typically antifreeze for RV water systems because it can be consumed by humans in small quantities without harm. It is a food additive and used in cosmetics as well.

It can be used as engine coolant and one company makes a “system” to do just that, Evans.

ETHYLENE glycol is auto antifreeze and it is poisonous. Especially to animals attracted to its sweet smell and taste.

That’s pretty cheap! I’ve been using Restasis for several years. That stuff is expensive! Hundreds of dollars per prescription refill. Also, I use OTC Systane Nighttime, too (.35 gram tube about $12.00), relatively cheap.

Here’s the thing: Since your optometrist is apparently treating you for some problem, albeit minor, you could probably move to an ophthalmologist (medical doctor for eyes) and use medical insurance to cover some/all of your eye care needs, including prescriptions if you’ve got the coverage. That’s what I did, years ago, after trying several optometrists for help with painfully dry eyes (think: breezy golf course).

I recommend that anybody with aging eyes visits an ophthalmologist annually for full monitoring and treatment. Mine established baselines and runs a battery of exams and tests each visit. What is your vision worth to you?

Back to anti-freeze… don’t splash any in eyes and never spill anti-freeze that has been cooled in a garage to below zero temperature, on any flesh. Don’t ask me how I know.
CSA
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While all that is true, I can’t believe it costs that much to get approval to sell the drug. IMO, this is another case of widely inflated prices by a drug manufacturer. They do it simply because they can. Do you ever wonder what happened to moral character in corporate America? I find myself thinking about it more and more lately.

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Have you looked at the cost of bottled water?

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It’s not just the cost of the approval to sell. There is the research and development, trials, marketing, insurance, etcetera. It usually takes years and I believe more of the drugs than not never make it to market and have to be scrapped for one reason or another.

Take away profits or cut them too much and new drugs will not be developed. Then again, I’m a capitalist in a capitalistic country, not at all interested in socialism.
CSA
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[quote=“common_sense_answer, post:10, topic:134609”]
. It usually takes years and I believe more of the drugs than not never make it to market and have to be scrapped for one reason or another.

Take away profits or cut them too much and new drugs will not be developed. Then again, I’m a capitalist in a capitalistic country,[/quote]

I have no problem with drug companies making a profit…There’s a big difference on how pharma companies do business and other companies…

Let’s not forget the 600% increase in the Epipen.

And then there’s drugs like Zantac which is used to treat Humans and bovine. For some reason the same drug from the same plant - the human drug costs 3-5 times more for humans then Bovine’s. It’s the EXACT same drug…only difference is packaging.

An of course the same drugs sold in other countries (Canada) manufactured in the same plant sell for half the US price.

I thought you were retired and collecting social security! You don’t collect social security?

Oftentimes I agree with this premise but in this case, we’re talking about two bottles of eye drops for under 20 bucks (SB only comes in 10ml bottles). That’s 200-400 doses (depending on if you use 1 or 2 drops) for less than lunch for two at McDonalds.

This is not even in the same universe, much less league, as the real overcharging problems such as those highlighted by @MikeInNH.

Honestly, I find the cost-per-gallon comparisons to be kind of silly. I’ve seen milk compared to gas. “Zomg! 5 bucks a gallon for milk! Gas is only $2.50!” Yeah, and gas doesn’t taste very good and will poison you if you pour it on your Cheerios.

One of my favorites is comparing the price of ink for printers to the street price of heroin and noting that the ink costs more. I mean, yeah, but then printing the Great American Novel with heroin won’t get you published very fast…

It’s all silly. These are different substances used for different purposes and with different requirements for development.

As CSA pointed out before going off the rails on his anti-socialism rant, it takes years of development by highly-paid scientists, and then years of testing and medical trials and regulatory hurdles before you can sell a drug.

Antifreeze has already been developed. It gets tweaks, but nothing on the order of developing a brand new drug. And if the antifreeze doesn’t work quite as expected, it’s probably not going to kill the guy who buys it, so you don’t need to run it through the kind of rigor that you run things which will be used on humans through.

Comparing prices of antifreeze and pharmacology products is comparing apples to aardvarks. It just doesn’t make a whit of sense.

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Let’s say that 10 gallons of this simple drug is sold each year. Annual sales are $5.7 million, and they stand to make $114 million over the 20 years they are the sole seller. It’s very hard for me to believe that it costs then anything close to $100 million to bring this particlular drug to market.

In 2015 a drug went from $13.50 to $750 a capsule. For.a 62 year old drug. I won’t give more examples unless you want them, but there is something very wrong with the pharmaceutical industry. Since when is robbing helpless people a benefit of capitalism?

Let’s say your numbers are right. You seem to want them to make $14 million in profit off of this drug. Over 20 years.

That’s less than a million per year, which is a lot of money to us, but to a large pharmaceutical corporation, that doesn’t even pay the light bill. They need to make enough profit to both be profitable and sink at least some of those profits into future R&D.

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I like that part! That’s my contribution to socialism. I can say things like, “If I don’t take it the feds will just keep it or give it to somebody else,” or “I paid for it during all those decades I worked,” but I won’t.

Wait a minute comrad… You got me thinking, Mike. I’m thinking of giving all the money back and cancelling S.S.
CSA
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I think it was addressed on this forum when regular gasoline went to $4+ per gallon and the same people who were screaming mad about that would calmly pay $8+ per gallon for bottled water in the gas station convenience store. LOL

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It’s my money! I’m not to the entitlement part, yet. I haven’t crunched the numbers, but I think it’ll take a couple of years before I get back all the cash I threw in. By then the Libs will have it all straightened out. I understand they’re against socialism.
CSA
:palm_tree::sunglasses::palm_tree:

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The light bill is paid before profits. But I agree $14 million is low for any company that large. No one would ever invest in in it. But $100 Billion is a bit steep.

Companies set R&D money aside BEFORE profits.

That’s NOT what your GOP says. ALL SSN IS ENTITLEMENT. This is why the GOP are considered hypocrites.

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For heaven’s sake, neither party speaks with a single voice. Must you generalize so?

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