Comment on The Ignorance of the Left on Price Control | Thomas Sowell
jimbolauski@lemm.ee 1 month agoIt is the point, Canada can rely on the US to subsidize R&D costs. The cost to manufacture does not cover all costs of a drug, or the costs of drugs which were ineffective.
MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m not sure that you said what you intended to say. Do you want to revisit it before I respond?
jimbolauski@lemm.ee 1 month ago
The only thing I could clarify further is that the cost to research drugs later found to be ineffective has to made up in the costs of drugs that do get approved.
MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Ok…I wasn’t sure that the point about the cost to manufacture drugs was what you actually meant to say.
Pharmaceutical companies make massive profits. What that means is that after all of the money they spend on all of the things you’re referring to they still make massive profit. I’m not suggesting that they shouldn’t make profit but that that profit should not be unlimited. The American healthcare system if grotesque. It is unique in the highly developed world in that grotesqueness. They wouldn’t sell Epipens in Canada for 20% of what they sell them for in the US if they weren’t making a profit on them. And, to be clear, Epipens contain epinephrine the wholesale cost of which is $5/mg and an Epipen delivers 0.3 mg which means that the drug in the Epipen costs around $1.50 wholesale. Is the little plastic pen with the spring in it worth $600? I don’t think so. I don’t even think that it’s worth the $150 you pay in Canada. You can have a pharmacist load a syringe for you for $15.
jimbolauski@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Profit margins for pharmaceutical companies are typically between 10 and 20 percent in the US, 2020 & 2021 are exceptions as the covid shot boosted numbers considerably. Those are normal profit margins for industry.