Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id588666605
They’ve done so even though the American public subsidized research and development costs for every drug approved for sale in the United States between 2010 and 2019.
✏️ This is nuts. Big pharma manipulated the economy so thoroughly, that taxpayers subsidize the r&d costs but then pay hiked up prices for the drugs that are subsequently sold. Meanwhile, they also get crazy tax cuts which translates to an increase in net income, first and foremost as profit for the stakeholders and not increased benefit for the people. 🔗 View Highlight
id588673743
“We have decided that we are not going to do certain [clinical] trials … because it is becoming financially not viable,” Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker told reporters in July. That same day, Schinecker told CNBC that “there is an environment now that’s starting to emerge, that, you know, certain medicines would not make it.” In response to a request for comment from us, Roche disputed the gains that it made from the tax cuts, but did not provide details.
✏️ Because of new govt regulations and laws that require negotiating the costs of drugs, big pharma are employing some shady techniques under the guise of “financial unviability”. Remember, they’re making record profits from tax cuts and overall huge drug prices. The regulations are affecting a number of drugs, not all of them. Instead, they will slow down r&d, prevent new drug releases, harm the public good, and do whatever it takes to protest the new laws. 🔗 View Highlight
id588674100
delay the release of an effective drug for ovarian cancers in order to first ensure that it is approved to be sold to the largest population of patients before it is subject to the new price controls.
id588674162
It’s frustrating that this is an artifact of government legislation, which is creating a disincentive for us to do the right thing for patients.”
✏️ The PR-speak of saying that the government is preventing them from doing the right thing for patients is especially despicable. The legislation wants them to negotiate on pricing… that’s it. They only care about how their profit margins might take a tiny hit, but here they are playing the victim card. 🔗 View Highlight
id588674411
Between 2012 and 2021, drug companies spent substantially more on stock buybacks and dividends to reward shareholders than they did on research and development.
✏️ Keep in mind that, whenever they say they want to do the right thing for patients, their money habits speak a whole different game. 🔗 View Highlight
id588676030
Knievel added that taxpayers already subsidize drug development by paying for federal medical research funding through grants. “We the people, we undergird development through our tax dollars, through the $40 billion we budget to the National Institutes of Health,” he said. “So long as we continue to support that early stage research, we should expect to get the new drugs that we need.”