You’re speaking about profits on a specific drug, not overall annual profits. Companies routinely take profits from one product and re-invest them into R&D for a new product.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that they are going to make $100 billion off of a single eyedrop product.
30 years ago I’d agree with you. Not today. You may have one or 2 not goose-steeping to the party line…but the elected officials today follow the party line or they loose support. They may not think along party lines, but the support and vote along party lines 99.999% of the time.
I know this has nothing to do with medication, but:
some years ago, a female friend used my car to go do some shopping for me while I was tinkering with her car.
She came back and with a very humble tone said that she had used some of my money to buy a flacon of perfume as it was on sale. She assured me that, at the first opportunity, she would pay me back, but she didn’t have the money now. I looked at the ticket and just said - oh well, I’ll survive.
The price was less the price of 1 liter of gas.
The repair of the car was free also and the hardest part of finishing it, was to avoid laughing my but off.
There’s something funny about the flags and only Mike’s comment got hidden, but let’s get away from the socialism/GOP/social security stuff. Thanks.
I can buy a couple of ounces of artificial tears for 79¢ I can buy an ounce of USP propylene glycol for $5. Add a tiny bit of the PG to the generic artificial tears…
That stuff is just white petrolatum (aka petroleum jelly, Vaseline) and mineral oil. The 2 competitors use the same ingredients but different proportions, 1 5% mineral oil, another 20%, the third 43%. Usually the generic stuff is identical. I make my own version of that stuff, heat it to sterile in a double boiler.
Especially if Medicare pays.
I agree. Wal-mart sells a generic for nearly the same price.
I drink the stuff the city sells me forf 1¢/gallon.
Yearly R&D budgets for pharmaceutical companies are in the billions…also the patent clock on the brand name for a drug starts the moment they discover the drug so given the years of R&D, clinical testing, FDA approval (and associated costs thereof) it’s often times well over $100 mil for an individual drug.
This, on the other hand, IS a huge problem that needs to be dealt with…frankly the price spiking with Epipens is absolutely appalling…
sure you can, but I wouldn’t put that into my eyes unless you had a sterile environment to make it in (and yes, I want an actual IV hood as I previously mentioned…)
Cows don’t sue drug manufacturers because they are still depressed or commit suicide so there is a much greater legal liability when selling to humans.
Because Canada sets the price, not the drug maker. Same for most of Europe.
I always at least search for the store brand. It’s still a rip-off, and all the arguments about research and profits are just noise to me.
I was over to the drugstore the other day looking for Betadine, which is basically 10% iodine and 90% water. One cup: $22. The store brand: One cup: $18. That much for a little iodine mixed w/water?
These medicos really like to mark up the cost of their products. I guess if they can get away with it, why not? There’s some lower cost competition though, I see a generic version is available online for about $6 per cup. There’s a non-sterile version for less than $3 per cup, but who want’s a non-sterile version of anti-septic? Oh my, I just found another brand priced at $50 per cup. That must be for hospitals to charge their patients … lol …
I have both a retinal specialist and a corneal specialist. I could neither read or drive for 9 months because of damage from dry eyes. My corneal specialist has stopped prescribing Restasis because of the high cost to patients, even those with insurance. She healed my eyes by drawing my blood and separating the serum and using it for eye drops along with gel tears until the surface was healed. I now use just the gel tears. My insurance doesn’t pay for any OTC eye drops. I was using Refresh gel tears that I got at Target in a two pack of 15 ml bottles for $14.95. It is now only available in single bottles for $10.95. Targets pharmacy dept has been taken over by CVS. I called the manufacturer to see if I could get the two packs and they said they stopped manufacturing them in November but when I asked why, they said they couldn’t comment on that.
I am supposed to use Genteal ointment at night. It was $11.95 for 1/8 oz tube and very difficult to get in my eye until the Doctor told me to run it under hot water to liquefy it and put a drop in each eye.
They then changed from a metal tube to a plastic one and the plastic one stopped it from liquefing/ The final straw for me was when I used almost half a tube trying to get some in my eye and the rest of the tube was just an air bubble. Let’s just say random troll isn’t the only one that noticed that it was just petroleum jelly and mineral oil. If you think your eyes are sterile, ask yourself how many times you rub or touch them every day and how much stuff blows into them. How sterile are your eves when you go swimming or take a shower or shampoo your hair.
You can use generic epinephrine in a hypo for cheap. Somebody’s made an inexpensive generic.
My eyes are in a non-sterile environment all the time. If they can make cheap eye drops they can make cheap eye drops with propylene glycol added.
Canada has to buy the drug from its maker. That’s my proposal: make pharma disclose all their prices.
The Mart of Wal sells povidone-iodine (generic Betadine) for half that.
Does an antiseptic need to be sterilized?
The first tube I bought told me to pull down my lower lid, apply it there, not directly to the cornea. That’s worked well for me.
Maybe you want the Mart of Wal brand, with a higher mineral oil content.
@pyrolord314 keeps his in sterile bubbles.
I haven’t had much luck wheeling/dealing w/Target’s pharmacy dept recently, maybe the CVS takeover is why. But you might try asking the Target pharmacist if there are other options for that product available that they could order for you. They used to be pretty helpful for that sort of thing, and could sometimes find a generic they could order for me for considerably less price. Recently I asked at Target about an allergy medication I wanted them to order, they weren’t helpful at all. There attitude seemed to be “for otc meds, if it is not on the shelf, we don’t have it”. CVS, same message. But Walgreens stepped up to the plate and ordered it for me for an even more reduced price. Health care in America … sigh …
So what? They wouldn’t be selling in Canada if they weren’t making a profit. So basically you’re saying we should regulate the price here.
They used to have a moral obligation to the customer. That doesn’t appear to be the case anymore. In 2016 during one 6-month period, Mylan increased the price of two dozen products by more than 20%, and doubled the price of 7 products. All these drugs were generic; that’s all Mylan makes. They aren’t covering research or advertising. They are just taking your money as quickly as they can. This has to stop. If they can’t regulate themselves, someone needs to stop them. That leaves the government to make them behave like responsible members of society.
Nowhere in my post did I suggest that. Simply stated a fact. Price regulations have negative consequences as well as positive ones. Explained better here;
I works perfectly well in Canada and Europe. Also works well for the VA. Their drug prices are also regulated.
It could be because the rest of the American people are paying the freight. Canada, the VA and Europe pay the manufacturing cost. The profit likely comes from the US buyers.
If covered by insurance, most wouldn’t care WHAT it cost. It is only the private-pay patient that pays the full price. And that is part of the problem with the evolution of our present system.
Reasonably sterile. The pool and the shower water has chlorine in it (bleach sterilizes things) and most of us close our eyes when shampooing. 
The idea isn’t that all possible contaminants have to be kept from the eye. The idea is that you don’t want bacteria growing in the eye drops, because while some contaminants won’t hurt your eye, others will blind you.
This right here is what needs to stop. The US is subsidizing the rest of the world’s medication. Easy solution - drug companies can’t charge us any more than they charge Europe or Canada. That would force price hikes in those countries, which would allow them to bring our costs down.
I will agree with that, but something weird is going on. A while back - actually 2 or 3 years back, here in DK, Novo Nordic (making insulin for diabetes) got accused of upping their “out the door” prices for export with the result that people could not afford it and USA was mentioned big time.
Novo showed up with proof that their prices “out the door” was at an all time low for countries like USA, Mexico and several others. They had lowered the prices 6 times over the past 4 years. And we are told that, in USA among others, users have never paid so much before as they do now.
Somebody between Novo and the end user must be making loads of money.
Actually, that reminds me - I know a guy working for Novo and he owns a -71 Rover P5 coupe.
Now it’s car related.
Could be. In other words…we’re paying too much.
The Pharma industry the highest profit margin industry in the world. Other industries make far less profit and do very well. Pharma industry has a captive audience. There are drugs people NEED to live or make their lives more comfortable.
And there are many drugs they make and push that people don’t need. Or not as much. Opioids is a great example. They don’t care who’s taking the drug or how many lives it hurts.,…just as long as they get their sales.
Doctor is in jail for selling the opioids…and the pharma company takes a walk. They take no responsibility in it. Even though this doctor sold enough opioids to keep everyone in that town high 24/7 for years. They close their eyes to the problem.