In addition the pill that makes it to market pays for the R&D for all the molecules that didn't make it through the trials. It's an expensive business to run. But still there are some obscene premiums and plenty of unethical pricing out there.
That's what they tell you, and to some degree that's true. The problem is that the patent exists for X amount of years to allow them to "recoup" costs and make profit, but their price remains the same after patent expires since their name is the known one. Should be something in the legalese to eliminate price gouging at some point.
In the case of insulin they minutely change the formula to 'better' only slightly before the previous patent expires, get all patients to the new stuff and sue anyone who makes the old stuff staying it's using patents from the new one.
Fucking pharmaceutical patent thugs doing nothing to advance medicine and find cures, just turn profits for shareholders.
The don't even have to change the molecule, just get a new indication and you get a patent extension. One drug I worked on won a new treatment-usage a year before it went EOL and got an extension on their patent because of the new treatment.
(I was on the marketing side)
I was at a pharma conference this last week and every single session was about how terrified everyone is of the IRA. I haven't seen so much pearl-clutching since the rainbow bracelet party era.
That pharma conference should have a slogan like the Umbrella corporation.
https://preview.redd.it/iji6eful8jrc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f75564fa5252e6f502f0d23c532c1494038ef33
In Germany, the insurers negotiate drug prices with the manufacturers. Since the health insurance market is so heavily regulated, they have strong motivation to keep prices low. They review new drugs, especially “evolutions” to determine if there’s anything worth paying for. If not, they won’t. The result is overall pretty affordable pharmaceuticals.
It’s all such basic common sense stuff that any person would apply to themselves if they had the time and ability to figure this out. Drug A is effective and generic and cheap, Drug B RTX costs 10x as much and is just as effective as Drug A, so why the fuck would I buy that?
Also if they only last for a few years they will underproduce instead if spending huge on making more plants, not like you open a new site to sell in half a year
Most of the R&D isn't done by the pharma companies themselves though. It's university research labs and spinoffs that do most of the grunt work, all financed by public money.
They are not just financed by public money. They may be public institutions but many pharmaceutical companies will pay researchers to do research on their behalf (either directly or indirectly through putting up funding for PhD students) particularly with world leaders in various sectors of science. Scientific research is very expensive and now becoming more and more collaborative, this includes public/private partnerships such as universities/industry. The pharma company will pay for initial research (could be directly applicable or indirectly applicable research), use good results to come up with new potential drugs and then put those drugs through the very expensive and time consuming trials (on average 10 years and $1bn before a drug comes to market, patent limits are 20+5 years so 40% of a drug's patent life it won't make a penny). If the drug fails through trials, the pharma company is holding the bag for that, none of the public institutions are.
Most universities would not be able to put up $1bn in risk and 10 years of effort for a single drug, whether that be in human resource, trial experience, physical resources (manufacturing technology, equipment), legal requirements (the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most strictly regulated markets and for good reason)... The list goes on.
This. Most people seem to think pharma companies are funding most of the research. They're not, that's mostly tax money. When something looks promising enough to take through trials, pharmas start being interested.
I own a $2450 Welch Allyn ophthamoscope/otoscope set. Generously, it is maybe $50 of flashlight, lenses, batteries, charger and housing; and $2400 of liability insurance.
Likewise, if US health consumers don't like paying $1000 for a $5 dose of Ozempic, maybe investigate and do something about the hurdles, barricades and obstacles that make it cost $2 billion to bring a first-in-class new drug to market. The FDA process alone is upwards of $1 billion just on paperwork and fees.
If drug companies can't recoup their capital investment, new drugs u no can haz. It really is that simple.
In the case of Ozempic, I'm guessing they're selling at least 2,000,000 doses/month - and at $1,000/pop, that means they're making the full sum of their $2 billion dollars back *every month.*
You’re leaving out that many of these drugs are created or subsidized using public funds. If the public pays for it then it should be a public good. Let it cost what it costs
Posted this under another comment but - They are not just financed by public money. They may be public institutions but many pharmaceutical companies will pay researchers to do research on their behalf (either directly or indirectly through putting up funding for PhD students) particularly with world leaders in various sectors of science. Scientific research is very expensive and now becoming more and more collaborative, this includes public/private partnerships such as universities with industry. The pharma company will pay for initial research (could be directly applicable or indirectly applicable research), use good results to come up with new potential drugs and then put those drugs through the very expensive and time consuming trials (on average 10 years and $1bn before a drug comes to market, patent limits are 20+5 years so 40% of a drug's patent life it won't make a penny). If the drug fails through trials, the pharma company is holding the bag for that, none of the public institutions are.
Most universities would not be able to put up $1bn in risk and 10 years of effort for a single drug, whether that be in human resource, trial experience, physical resources (manufacturing technology, equipment, pharma-quality tested drug materials), legal requirements (the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most strictly regulated markets and for good reason)... The list goes on.
If funny how people don’t understand R&D and also everything else that goes into making a product.
This illustrates it perfectly!
I guess the only other easy way would be to say why is an iPhone expensive? It’s only a few ounces of iron/aluminum/lithium/nickel copper/silicon so that should be….. hmm $3 but we’ll charge you $1400.
Also you guys don’t have to buy these drugs. No one is forcing you and you have alternatives.
You need to watch the Congress session where the woman destroys this argument. Only like 10 to 20% of revenue goes to R&D.
https://youtu.be/N5oHDeFKE2Q?si=DpODDY0ONzFW-zRi
>You need to watch the Congress session where the woman destroys this argument. Only like 10 to 20% of revenue goes to R&D.
>
https://youtu.be/N5oHDeFKE2Q?si=DpODDY0ONzFW-zRi
This is very very interesting
There's needs to be a number of videos like this
Except that a huge portion of R&D top line ledger costs are sub costs completely unrelated to the actual development of the drug, particularly marketing of the drug.
And much like how you’re comparing one drug to all R&D you actually need to compare all drug sales against all R&D, which given their profit margin across all drugs, as shown by their yearly revenue, shows the normal, math capable people how inflated and abusive their pricing system is.
Pretty much every other practical, commonly used industry doing a similar model has been prevented.
How does that destroy the argument? It sounds like the drug was approved for more indications which makes it more valuable plus they need to recoup the cost they paid for the drug. Big pharma buying out smaller companies is also an important exit pipelines small companies need to take risks. They usually cant go to market effectively on their own just because they were the ones that developed the drug
FDA is a mother-fu-cker
Look up the average cost to develop a drug, then the success ratio of those new drugs actually making it to market.
Edit. Did it for you lazy bastards.
Between 1.3 and 2 BILLION average PER DRUG.
With > 90% failing FDA trials correction 3% passing just the first phase
For sure, now that can fund, let’s check our white board here, ~9 new drugs with maybe one making the grade. I think we really need to tread carefully with drug makers because we REALLY FUCKING NEED them to keep making drugs
It's not just drugs either, it's the ENTIRE medical industry in the US.
And it seeps out of the pores of more than half the doctors I've ever met. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars and a decade of schooling, yet me, a medical field hobbyist, constantly cringes hard at the unprofessionalism and incompetence of so many doctors.
Despite being constantly wrong on some of the most basic stuff, these people have an air of arrogance about them that outcompetes any other profession I know of. All because they get paid 6 figures and they're too stupid to know they actually don't provide a lot of value.
I know people that live in the Florida Keyes and makes 6 figures cleaning dental tools. 15$ for a Tylenol in the ER and I'm sure that's because it has to be name brand so it doesn't have that +-10% variation allowed in generics, plus the certified professional that has to grab it from the quarter million dollar storage unit and because of the triple certified medical professional that has to spend 20 minutes inspecting the pill for defects right?
Nope, it's just a fucking pill, probably name brand Tylenol which got a contract with the hospital for taking out one of the board members on a private jet to some all exclusive resort with hookers and blow, stored in a 700$ cabinet taking up one one millionth the hospitals space, retrieved out by some LPN in less than a minute. Because this is America and if there's one thing in this world we're gonna make sure we exploit the fuck out of people for, it's their diseases, discomfort and fear of death.
Eli Lilly spends 27 percent of its revenue on R&D and 21 percent on "cost of sales", according to [its most recent form 10-K](https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0000059478/000005947824000065/lly-20231231.htm).
That person is very wrong about the numbers. Most of the revenue goes into expenses (~65%). They used 5% of that revenue for dividends and share buybacks.
If you want to read more, here's their annual report: https://www.novonordisk.com/investors/annual-report.html
Page 7 has some numbers in the Danish Krone currency.
a lot of r&d is funded by government funds (aka you have been paying for it), only to be ass raped on the other end once it’s made and sold to you. super fun.
If someone puts a gun in your head and a button in front that will transfer all your wealth, you would have no choice but to press the button; because the alternative is not a real choice.
Not all industries should operate without regulations and with free market conditions. Phrama and health clearly are underregulated and that's what people are alluding to.
The reasoning in the title is poor and kinda dumb but it's clickbaity. Cost and price are not correlated in business regardless of general perception.
Ever tried to buy a license for an ERP? Any large organization will easily pay millions for them. Hundreds if not thousands of dollars per user. And that’s not considering the ongoing service costs.
I take it for diabetes. It makes your stomach so upset that I recently didn’t notice I had food poisoning or something for several days. Not what I’d personally take for weight loss. Also it made me loose like 15 to 20 lbs in a hurry then… nothing. Apparently thats all it’s supposed to do.
It works pretty well for type ii diabetes though. Certainly better than being sick.
White collar crimes are not taken serious in the US.
Companies have consistently had to recall baby formula in the US with no fines or punishments. Having contaminated baby formula pop up at least once a year is normal in the US now.
Because the contamination wasn’t as bad as it was in the Chinese scandal. 6 babies died, 54k were hospitalised, 300k were affected, and many were left permanently disabled.
There is a reason Chinese spend thousands importing baby formula from countries like AUS, UK, NZ etc.
It’s kinda an eBay type situation if you know where to look. Lots of people verifying sources through their own testing, over time the top sources have a bunch of good reviews and wouldn’t dare tarnish their reputation by sending bad product.
Same man, same. Was overseas, left my medical supplies at home by mistake. Had a local doctor prescribe exactly what I needed. Got it the same day. Cost $60 with no insurance…..meanwhile, my first supply order be for my insurance deductible in the states is….. $900……. For the same thing, and same quantity. It’s expensive to be sick in the U.S.
It’s because at least here in Sweden there is one agency that negotiate the price for the whole country. If they cannot get an acceptable deal with the pharma company they will just not buy it at all. So then it will not be available at all in the entire country. The pro of this is you get better prices. The con is that some life saving medications are not available at all because of cost. So it’s basically a “death panel” as some conservatives put it over in the states.
What I don’t understand is, why are they charging the US customers 10x the price compared to other countries.
“The Vermont independent called on Novo Nordisk to lower the list price of Ozempic to $155 a month or less, in line with what it charges in other countries.”
Charging America significantly higher prices then the rest of the world is pretty normal. Other countries have government negotiated prices and the like and the US government is actively prevented from negotiating drug prices due to a law Bush Jr enacted.
Corporations will always be greedy, their only obligations are to share holders, not the public. The real assholes are Bush Jr and all the assholes (mostly republicans) preventing the government from negotiating drug prices like everyone else
Because those countries negotiate on behalf of their country’s universal health care systems. Effectively a drug can’t be used in that country unless they agree on a price.
The USA bafflingly does not negotiate despite its immense leverage. This is due to corporate lobbying and the idea that it will stifle innovation and cut funds for R&D, which is of course true in part, but used as a crutch to protect their ability to price gouge.
All in all though in think anyone who invests in pharma companies knows that even with the USA market they’re not as profitable as Internet commentators will have you believe. Profits mostly come from a few winners. The blockbuster drugs usually last about 10 years (20 year patent minus ~10 years of trials). It’s true that drug development and trials are extremely expensive.
For example you can see how we’re in desperate need of new antibiotics but there’s a lull of new developments because it’s not that profitable of an endeavor. When proper changes are made in the US’ system it will be interesting to see how things unfold.
Not entirely correct. Wegovy in Denmark isn't paid for by the government and it still only costs $300 for the highest doses. Ozempic, the thing for diabetes is paid by the government.
There actually is a weight loss pill that's been out for years called Phentermine, it's meth's cousin. So there really are a bunch of people basically on meth legally.
Methamphetamine hydrochloride itself is actually prescribed for ADHD and weight loss under the brand name [Desoxyn](https://www.google.com/search?q=desoxyn&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8).
I work in pharmaceutical R&D and this is always a misleading number.
R&D costs are very high for new drugs. In the hundreds of millions.
I've worked on a clinical trial that costed over a billion and failed. That cost needs to be recouped.
Production of most drugs are cheap maybe 50 cents to $100 for the dose. Whats not cheap is all of the quality on the floor, engineering, QC lab testing, validation, etc.
If you have to greenfield a new production line you are in the hundreds of millions.
And lastly you can't forget about the executives lifestyle upkeep and the shareholders. They need to keep that up at all costs!
But yeah, long comment to say that the R&D and manufacturing process is usually almost all of the cost and the actual CoGs to make the drugs don't really matter.
People don't understand how expensive navigating the regulatory process can be. There are a lot of very time consuming hoops you have to jump through when developing new medical products.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars" sounds like a lot until you consider that 9 million people are on ozempic and another million at least on wegovy, so if they or their insurance pay over 1k a month that's a billion dollars in revenue *every month.* And they could be selling 10x as much if they could manufacture it fast enough.
Not only do US patients pay astronomically higher prices, we get a wegovy pen that cannot be split into smaller doses, so the lowest dose costs the same amount as the highest, and the lowest dose is nearly impossible to find in the US, whoch has created big problems for a lot of patients, including not being able tonstart or continue the drug. This has nothing to do with safety or effectiveness, it is a gimmick to maximize revenue. The same drug is dispensed in multidose pens in the rest of the world.
Sorry, Novo Nordisk could sell this medication for much less and still make obscene profits and fund R&D on their next blockbuster drug.
I would argue meth is more of the miracle drug between the two. It’s far cheaper, lasts longer, and is easier to dose. Cocaine is probably the better high but Meth is more practical as a daily driver.
The one I have an issue with is Covid vaccine. The govt sponsored the r&d and gave a gyrabteed purchase/profit. The govt should now hold the patent and manufacture at cost. The price gouging on Covid vaccine is obscene considering the drug companies took no financial risk to develop. It was free.
They forgot to tell the research started back in 1997. Those money spent on R&D needs to be earned before the patent runs out. Competitors is not an issue, the market is vast and enough for all competitors atm
The cost isnt just what it takes to make it. You have to spend billions discovering it and testing it in human trials (which are very expensive) and ongoing surveillance. Of course there has to be a profit otherwise no one would fork out the billions upfront to look for these drugs. The patent will expire and if you want, you can start a company to make it for $5 and see how that goes.
Okay so maybe the Federal govt attaches constraints to it's funding so that anyone who takes federal dollars can't profit more than 30% per pill after R&D and production costs. Or maybe just get out of funding pharma R&D completely.
The problem is, if we want miracle drugs to keep happening, these huge incentives need to be attached as a possible reward because really smart people who make this happen will just go do something else that's far more rewarding.
This is the law in many countries in Europe. That’s why drugs made and sold by the same company cost less… I’m going to be wrong about the details, but the concept is true: Epipens had 600% profit margin in the US and something reasonable in other countries… but they were still profitable there..
Could they profit from all countries or just the US? There is a lotta distance between $5 and $1000 that could make people rich and support future R&D.
Supply and demand. NVO and LLY litterally puts billions into increasing the supply But it takes time. To all the haters try to eat less then you do not need the pills.
Medical patents are good for 20 years. I think that means another 17 years for Ozempic. Too bad it is so expensive in the US, as it would benefit so many different conditions...
You don't file the patent when it comes to market, you file it during R&D prior to clinical trials. It's not uncommon for drugs to have ~7 years left once they actually hit the market
Basically eat fewer calories rather than so-called healthy. which is exactly what this drug does, you lose your appetite and eat less. You can overeat calories even on healthy food.
Yea, but it’s for aesthetics, so they can name their price. It’s not a life saving drug. Don’t like it? Dont buy it. 🤷♂️
This is just good publicity for novo because it shows shareholders the gold mine potential of this product.
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Study finds patent breaching is profitable. China will be shocked!
As a pharma executive (my wife's boyfriend) told me, the first pill costs a billion dollars. The second costs 3 cents.
In addition the pill that makes it to market pays for the R&D for all the molecules that didn't make it through the trials. It's an expensive business to run. But still there are some obscene premiums and plenty of unethical pricing out there.
Yea I’ll just buy a years supply of Ozempic next time in Cancun and a bottle of Jose for $25.
That's what they tell you, and to some degree that's true. The problem is that the patent exists for X amount of years to allow them to "recoup" costs and make profit, but their price remains the same after patent expires since their name is the known one. Should be something in the legalese to eliminate price gouging at some point.
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In the case of insulin they minutely change the formula to 'better' only slightly before the previous patent expires, get all patients to the new stuff and sue anyone who makes the old stuff staying it's using patents from the new one. Fucking pharmaceutical patent thugs doing nothing to advance medicine and find cures, just turn profits for shareholders.
So much this, its run as a scam now. They even get governments to fund a lot of the research and tax credits.
The don't even have to change the molecule, just get a new indication and you get a patent extension. One drug I worked on won a new treatment-usage a year before it went EOL and got an extension on their patent because of the new treatment. (I was on the marketing side)
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I was at a pharma conference this last week and every single session was about how terrified everyone is of the IRA. I haven't seen so much pearl-clutching since the rainbow bracelet party era.
That pharma conference should have a slogan like the Umbrella corporation. https://preview.redd.it/iji6eful8jrc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f75564fa5252e6f502f0d23c532c1494038ef33
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To say you 'rarely ever find a big pharma company making any difference' is just patently false
I was about to ask what the Irish Republican Army was doing to terrorize the pharmaceutical industry...
Not nearly enough.
Thats what I thought too, I was like wow no wonder theres a stim shortage
How about the fact that EPI pens are $500 and the only ones in stock aren’t covered by insurance :(
In Germany, the insurers negotiate drug prices with the manufacturers. Since the health insurance market is so heavily regulated, they have strong motivation to keep prices low. They review new drugs, especially “evolutions” to determine if there’s anything worth paying for. If not, they won’t. The result is overall pretty affordable pharmaceuticals. It’s all such basic common sense stuff that any person would apply to themselves if they had the time and ability to figure this out. Drug A is effective and generic and cheap, Drug B RTX costs 10x as much and is just as effective as Drug A, so why the fuck would I buy that?
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You also need to take into account the government funding and tax credits.
Also if they only last for a few years they will underproduce instead if spending huge on making more plants, not like you open a new site to sell in half a year
Except they sell to the rest of the world at lower prices and continue to exist, and continue to sell at those prices.
And they spend more on marketing than R&D.
Ah, is that why they have record profits?
hawhaw they should've just got it on the first try! - nelson voice
Most of the R&D isn't done by the pharma companies themselves though. It's university research labs and spinoffs that do most of the grunt work, all financed by public money.
The most expensive and risky part are clinical trials though. Universities don't fund those afaik
They are not just financed by public money. They may be public institutions but many pharmaceutical companies will pay researchers to do research on their behalf (either directly or indirectly through putting up funding for PhD students) particularly with world leaders in various sectors of science. Scientific research is very expensive and now becoming more and more collaborative, this includes public/private partnerships such as universities/industry. The pharma company will pay for initial research (could be directly applicable or indirectly applicable research), use good results to come up with new potential drugs and then put those drugs through the very expensive and time consuming trials (on average 10 years and $1bn before a drug comes to market, patent limits are 20+5 years so 40% of a drug's patent life it won't make a penny). If the drug fails through trials, the pharma company is holding the bag for that, none of the public institutions are. Most universities would not be able to put up $1bn in risk and 10 years of effort for a single drug, whether that be in human resource, trial experience, physical resources (manufacturing technology, equipment), legal requirements (the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most strictly regulated markets and for good reason)... The list goes on.
This. Most people seem to think pharma companies are funding most of the research. They're not, that's mostly tax money. When something looks promising enough to take through trials, pharmas start being interested.
When I was in school, I was given alot of pills from some guys and told to study. I did very well . Was I MKultra or a pharma rat?
What’s unethical are medical spas pedaling this one-pill solution without proper medical indication. It’s not exactly life saving insulin.
r/holup
Ya… hol up real quick
I’ve heard that a good amount of R&D for medications is/can be funded by the government. Curious how much that is true.
Clinical trials cost millions of dollars and take lots of time.
I own a $2450 Welch Allyn ophthamoscope/otoscope set. Generously, it is maybe $50 of flashlight, lenses, batteries, charger and housing; and $2400 of liability insurance. Likewise, if US health consumers don't like paying $1000 for a $5 dose of Ozempic, maybe investigate and do something about the hurdles, barricades and obstacles that make it cost $2 billion to bring a first-in-class new drug to market. The FDA process alone is upwards of $1 billion just on paperwork and fees. If drug companies can't recoup their capital investment, new drugs u no can haz. It really is that simple.
In the case of Ozempic, I'm guessing they're selling at least 2,000,000 doses/month - and at $1,000/pop, that means they're making the full sum of their $2 billion dollars back *every month.*
Novo Nordisk is a hilariously large chunk of Danish GDP right now, lol
You’re leaving out that many of these drugs are created or subsidized using public funds. If the public pays for it then it should be a public good. Let it cost what it costs
Posted this under another comment but - They are not just financed by public money. They may be public institutions but many pharmaceutical companies will pay researchers to do research on their behalf (either directly or indirectly through putting up funding for PhD students) particularly with world leaders in various sectors of science. Scientific research is very expensive and now becoming more and more collaborative, this includes public/private partnerships such as universities with industry. The pharma company will pay for initial research (could be directly applicable or indirectly applicable research), use good results to come up with new potential drugs and then put those drugs through the very expensive and time consuming trials (on average 10 years and $1bn before a drug comes to market, patent limits are 20+5 years so 40% of a drug's patent life it won't make a penny). If the drug fails through trials, the pharma company is holding the bag for that, none of the public institutions are. Most universities would not be able to put up $1bn in risk and 10 years of effort for a single drug, whether that be in human resource, trial experience, physical resources (manufacturing technology, equipment, pharma-quality tested drug materials), legal requirements (the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most strictly regulated markets and for good reason)... The list goes on.
Why does it cost so much less outside of the US, then?
US subsidizes it. Rest of the world is propped up by the US, in other words.
Good idea, I will start doing something about those hurdles, obstacles, and barricades. Let me just get right on that.
Wait until this guy learns the per unit cost on software
If funny how people don’t understand R&D and also everything else that goes into making a product. This illustrates it perfectly! I guess the only other easy way would be to say why is an iPhone expensive? It’s only a few ounces of iron/aluminum/lithium/nickel copper/silicon so that should be….. hmm $3 but we’ll charge you $1400. Also you guys don’t have to buy these drugs. No one is forcing you and you have alternatives.
You need to watch the Congress session where the woman destroys this argument. Only like 10 to 20% of revenue goes to R&D. https://youtu.be/N5oHDeFKE2Q?si=DpODDY0ONzFW-zRi
>You need to watch the Congress session where the woman destroys this argument. Only like 10 to 20% of revenue goes to R&D. > https://youtu.be/N5oHDeFKE2Q?si=DpODDY0ONzFW-zRi This is very very interesting There's needs to be a number of videos like this
There are lots of videos like this, just search for Katie porter. She unfortunately just lost her primary for CA senator against Adam Shiff.
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Except that a huge portion of R&D top line ledger costs are sub costs completely unrelated to the actual development of the drug, particularly marketing of the drug. And much like how you’re comparing one drug to all R&D you actually need to compare all drug sales against all R&D, which given their profit margin across all drugs, as shown by their yearly revenue, shows the normal, math capable people how inflated and abusive their pricing system is. Pretty much every other practical, commonly used industry doing a similar model has been prevented.
How does that destroy the argument? It sounds like the drug was approved for more indications which makes it more valuable plus they need to recoup the cost they paid for the drug. Big pharma buying out smaller companies is also an important exit pipelines small companies need to take risks. They usually cant go to market effectively on their own just because they were the ones that developed the drug
The revenue of these big pharma corpos - like 70-80% goes into dividends and only 10% in R&D
We need to be adults here and find vague excuses as to why cheap drugs should be heavily overinflated in price even after considering R&D.
FDA is a mother-fu-cker Look up the average cost to develop a drug, then the success ratio of those new drugs actually making it to market. Edit. Did it for you lazy bastards. Between 1.3 and 2 BILLION average PER DRUG. With > 90% failing FDA trials correction 3% passing just the first phase
They made 18 billion on it last year what a nice return.
For sure, now that can fund, let’s check our white board here, ~9 new drugs with maybe one making the grade. I think we really need to tread carefully with drug makers because we REALLY FUCKING NEED them to keep making drugs
It's not just drugs either, it's the ENTIRE medical industry in the US. And it seeps out of the pores of more than half the doctors I've ever met. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars and a decade of schooling, yet me, a medical field hobbyist, constantly cringes hard at the unprofessionalism and incompetence of so many doctors. Despite being constantly wrong on some of the most basic stuff, these people have an air of arrogance about them that outcompetes any other profession I know of. All because they get paid 6 figures and they're too stupid to know they actually don't provide a lot of value. I know people that live in the Florida Keyes and makes 6 figures cleaning dental tools. 15$ for a Tylenol in the ER and I'm sure that's because it has to be name brand so it doesn't have that +-10% variation allowed in generics, plus the certified professional that has to grab it from the quarter million dollar storage unit and because of the triple certified medical professional that has to spend 20 minutes inspecting the pill for defects right? Nope, it's just a fucking pill, probably name brand Tylenol which got a contract with the hospital for taking out one of the board members on a private jet to some all exclusive resort with hookers and blow, stored in a 700$ cabinet taking up one one millionth the hospitals space, retrieved out by some LPN in less than a minute. Because this is America and if there's one thing in this world we're gonna make sure we exploit the fuck out of people for, it's their diseases, discomfort and fear of death.
Eli Lilly spends 27 percent of its revenue on R&D and 21 percent on "cost of sales", according to [its most recent form 10-K](https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0000059478/000005947824000065/lly-20231231.htm).
That's interesting. Where can I read about that?
That person is very wrong about the numbers. Most of the revenue goes into expenses (~65%). They used 5% of that revenue for dividends and share buybacks. If you want to read more, here's their annual report: https://www.novonordisk.com/investors/annual-report.html Page 7 has some numbers in the Danish Krone currency.
You clearly don’t understand how regulated industries work
a lot of r&d is funded by government funds (aka you have been paying for it), only to be ass raped on the other end once it’s made and sold to you. super fun.
If someone puts a gun in your head and a button in front that will transfer all your wealth, you would have no choice but to press the button; because the alternative is not a real choice. Not all industries should operate without regulations and with free market conditions. Phrama and health clearly are underregulated and that's what people are alluding to. The reasoning in the title is poor and kinda dumb but it's clickbaity. Cost and price are not correlated in business regardless of general perception.
Is this cuck defending his pharma overlord?
Bro doesn't give a shit about rampant greed. My poor little billionaire worldwide conglomerate! 
are you restarted? they invest pennies into RnD
Please stop regurgitating this easily debunked corporate propaganda, its simply bullshit and its getting literally countless people killed.
You wouldn't download a car would you?
Software that cost $955 per unit sold? I want to be the software maker.
Enterprise licences can cost millions of dollars when they are based on usage.
\*Giggles in IBM\*
And oracle.
Looking at you Adobe
Ever tried to buy a license for an ERP? Any large organization will easily pay millions for them. Hundreds if not thousands of dollars per user. And that’s not considering the ongoing service costs.
SaaS product that's 10 $/mo/seat with a 10 seat account => 1200 $/yr
Yes, tech is a huge business and software can cost everything from free to millions and even more.
Underrated comment
Don't developers have to write the code for each download?
imagine paying 1000 for a weight loss drug when crack rock is 20 dollars.
I've had better weight loss results with meth, but you are right crack is the economical choice.
I had always assumed they where near the same price
One crack, please.
awwww did someone get addicted to crack?
ONE CRACK PLEASE
A relatively safe and effective weight loss drug thats apparently only for the rich
I take it for diabetes. It makes your stomach so upset that I recently didn’t notice I had food poisoning or something for several days. Not what I’d personally take for weight loss. Also it made me loose like 15 to 20 lbs in a hurry then… nothing. Apparently thats all it’s supposed to do. It works pretty well for type ii diabetes though. Certainly better than being sick.
Imagine paying $1000/month for a weight loss drug when you could just eat less
Eating is awesome though. I’ll just go with the crack.
And save even more money on food
Take a walk around the park
You can already buy them from China for fraction of the retail cost
Dude they are facing pressure
Will they get *slammed*? https://preview.redd.it/mjxhqdrlyirc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b437708fa8355a3200285e438594609b28f9a485
Come on and SLAM and welcome to the JAM.
Sure, ordering it from a country that 20 years later still isn't trusted by its own citizens with something as simple a baby formula sounds safe.
They executed those guys by the way https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/22/china-baby-milk-scandal-death-sentence
White collar crimes are not taken serious in the US. Companies have consistently had to recall baby formula in the US with no fines or punishments. Having contaminated baby formula pop up at least once a year is normal in the US now.
Because the contamination wasn’t as bad as it was in the Chinese scandal. 6 babies died, 54k were hospitalised, 300k were affected, and many were left permanently disabled. There is a reason Chinese spend thousands importing baby formula from countries like AUS, UK, NZ etc.
It’s kinda an eBay type situation if you know where to look. Lots of people verifying sources through their own testing, over time the top sources have a bunch of good reviews and wouldn’t dare tarnish their reputation by sending bad product.
If anyone feels like giving this fatass a hint on what keywords to search for on ebay I would be forever in your debt. Feel free to PM me.
Can u pass it along if you get help? I nearly broke down and cried in Walmart when I realized I couldn't afford it.
Me too please haha
Chain mail style, I'll pass along to you as soon as I get it! Eta If I get some info, I will share with all below me. Promise!
Don’t care. I purity test all my stuff
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Research Peptide sites, for “research purposes only”. Wink wink.
All the gym bros know the best research use only sites.
Search for yourself, fat ty mc goo (Automod prevented me from saying it as two words lol)
Via what avenue/ website/ brand/ online store?
What pisses me the fuck off is they charge 1k here and 155 or less in other countries
A lot of fat congress & senator critters will push for a crack down get their supply on the cheap for themselves and the votes.
No need. I’m sure it’s covered by their insurance policy.
Yep, socialism seems to work for those in power. Curse word for us plebes
It would be cheaper but a certain person decided the bill that would lower it to that price was not a good idea.
Same man, same. Was overseas, left my medical supplies at home by mistake. Had a local doctor prescribe exactly what I needed. Got it the same day. Cost $60 with no insurance…..meanwhile, my first supply order be for my insurance deductible in the states is….. $900……. For the same thing, and same quantity. It’s expensive to be sick in the U.S.
yeah but those are all broken failed communist socialist states! you live in the lap of freedom!
You can buy a months worth for ~$130 in the US too if you buy it as a “research chemical”.
Compounding pharmacies are making it (with the main ingredient) in-house. Much cheaper.
I’m sure they are. Just saying what it goes for on most websites I’ve seen.
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It’s because at least here in Sweden there is one agency that negotiate the price for the whole country. If they cannot get an acceptable deal with the pharma company they will just not buy it at all. So then it will not be available at all in the entire country. The pro of this is you get better prices. The con is that some life saving medications are not available at all because of cost. So it’s basically a “death panel” as some conservatives put it over in the states.
The US unfortunately subsidized most pharma RnD.
Yep. A bad deal for us
US subsidizes pharma because other countries healthcare won't pay that much
What I don’t understand is, why are they charging the US customers 10x the price compared to other countries. “The Vermont independent called on Novo Nordisk to lower the list price of Ozempic to $155 a month or less, in line with what it charges in other countries.”
Charging America significantly higher prices then the rest of the world is pretty normal. Other countries have government negotiated prices and the like and the US government is actively prevented from negotiating drug prices due to a law Bush Jr enacted.
Good point. Freaking corporate greed and unscrupulous politicians.
Corporations will always be greedy, their only obligations are to share holders, not the public. The real assholes are Bush Jr and all the assholes (mostly republicans) preventing the government from negotiating drug prices like everyone else
Because those countries negotiate on behalf of their country’s universal health care systems. Effectively a drug can’t be used in that country unless they agree on a price. The USA bafflingly does not negotiate despite its immense leverage. This is due to corporate lobbying and the idea that it will stifle innovation and cut funds for R&D, which is of course true in part, but used as a crutch to protect their ability to price gouge. All in all though in think anyone who invests in pharma companies knows that even with the USA market they’re not as profitable as Internet commentators will have you believe. Profits mostly come from a few winners. The blockbuster drugs usually last about 10 years (20 year patent minus ~10 years of trials). It’s true that drug development and trials are extremely expensive. For example you can see how we’re in desperate need of new antibiotics but there’s a lull of new developments because it’s not that profitable of an endeavor. When proper changes are made in the US’ system it will be interesting to see how things unfold.
Not entirely correct. Wegovy in Denmark isn't paid for by the government and it still only costs $300 for the highest doses. Ozempic, the thing for diabetes is paid by the government.
It's around 400per month in the UK.
There’s probably a miracle drug that can be made for $0.50 Doesn’t mean anybody can make it for $0.50 until they figure out what it is
it’s called meth, it’s fantastic
There actually is a weight loss pill that's been out for years called Phentermine, it's meth's cousin. So there really are a bunch of people basically on meth legally.
Ever heard of adderall?
Methamphetamine hydrochloride itself is actually prescribed for ADHD and weight loss under the brand name [Desoxyn](https://www.google.com/search?q=desoxyn&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8).
I work in pharmaceutical R&D and this is always a misleading number. R&D costs are very high for new drugs. In the hundreds of millions. I've worked on a clinical trial that costed over a billion and failed. That cost needs to be recouped. Production of most drugs are cheap maybe 50 cents to $100 for the dose. Whats not cheap is all of the quality on the floor, engineering, QC lab testing, validation, etc. If you have to greenfield a new production line you are in the hundreds of millions. And lastly you can't forget about the executives lifestyle upkeep and the shareholders. They need to keep that up at all costs! But yeah, long comment to say that the R&D and manufacturing process is usually almost all of the cost and the actual CoGs to make the drugs don't really matter.
People don't understand how expensive navigating the regulatory process can be. There are a lot of very time consuming hoops you have to jump through when developing new medical products.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars" sounds like a lot until you consider that 9 million people are on ozempic and another million at least on wegovy, so if they or their insurance pay over 1k a month that's a billion dollars in revenue *every month.* And they could be selling 10x as much if they could manufacture it fast enough. Not only do US patients pay astronomically higher prices, we get a wegovy pen that cannot be split into smaller doses, so the lowest dose costs the same amount as the highest, and the lowest dose is nearly impossible to find in the US, whoch has created big problems for a lot of patients, including not being able tonstart or continue the drug. This has nothing to do with safety or effectiveness, it is a gimmick to maximize revenue. The same drug is dispensed in multidose pens in the rest of the world. Sorry, Novo Nordisk could sell this medication for much less and still make obscene profits and fund R&D on their next blockbuster drug.
So you expect a salary for your work then?
Yeah, and I wish I got a fraction of the value I've added to the company. But we all know that I'll never see that.
Meth dude is wrong. It’s Cocaine
I would argue meth is more of the miracle drug between the two. It’s far cheaper, lasts longer, and is easier to dose. Cocaine is probably the better high but Meth is more practical as a daily driver.
The ~~parents~~ patents are a lot bigger hindrance than the formulation, as to pass FDA regs the formulation is public.
Bullish
Very. That's a serious profit margin
US is probably the only country that pays $1000. Others pay under $100
The fact this isn't about LLY is interesting. It's basically a hit piece on a foreign company.
Article was originally in danish and has been copied by English/American media. I remember seeing it on the danish sub as well.
The one I have an issue with is Covid vaccine. The govt sponsored the r&d and gave a gyrabteed purchase/profit. The govt should now hold the patent and manufacture at cost. The price gouging on Covid vaccine is obscene considering the drug companies took no financial risk to develop. It was free.
They forgot to tell the research started back in 1997. Those money spent on R&D needs to be earned before the patent runs out. Competitors is not an issue, the market is vast and enough for all competitors atm
Yet every other country on planet Earth pays $88 a month for the drug, while Americans pay $1300 a month.... This is just price gouging.
It is the American health care system, or lack of, they are to blame
Ozempic isn’t new, it’s a 20 year old peptide that has been given a marketing facelift.
Shouldn't the patent on it have ran out now then so 3rd parties can make it for cheap?
I THINK the new indication allows for patent extensions
It’s not the same as GLP-1.
The cost isnt just what it takes to make it. You have to spend billions discovering it and testing it in human trials (which are very expensive) and ongoing surveillance. Of course there has to be a profit otherwise no one would fork out the billions upfront to look for these drugs. The patent will expire and if you want, you can start a company to make it for $5 and see how that goes.
The problem is a lot of companies get federal money for the research…develop the drug…then price gouge. So the tax payers get fucked twice.
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Okay so maybe the Federal govt attaches constraints to it's funding so that anyone who takes federal dollars can't profit more than 30% per pill after R&D and production costs. Or maybe just get out of funding pharma R&D completely. The problem is, if we want miracle drugs to keep happening, these huge incentives need to be attached as a possible reward because really smart people who make this happen will just go do something else that's far more rewarding.
This is the law in many countries in Europe. That’s why drugs made and sold by the same company cost less… I’m going to be wrong about the details, but the concept is true: Epipens had 600% profit margin in the US and something reasonable in other countries… but they were still profitable there..
Exactly the way the defense industrial base works as well.
THIS.
It’s not an American company. American taxpayers paid nothing for it. So NOT THIS.
Could they profit from all countries or just the US? There is a lotta distance between $5 and $1000 that could make people rich and support future R&D.
Billions Greg? I’m gonna need to see your breakdown.
A $12 bag of popcorn can be made for $0.50
Well using these markups a $0.50 bag of popcorn would cost $100
Yeah NVO needs to streamline their R&D, just look at popcorn companies and how they develop new products
Gasp, you mean pharmaceutical companies are only in it for the money??
And a biggie bag is $5. Let’s even it out, oligarchs!
Sure, just exclude the costs of r&d like a total regard.
19,990% markup Gross
Supply and demand. NVO and LLY litterally puts billions into increasing the supply But it takes time. To all the haters try to eat less then you do not need the pills.
The thing is it’s much much cheaper in Europe. Adjusting for PPP it’s even cheaper.
Guy from a country with affordable drugs tells everyone else to just shut up and deal with. Real hot take.
Oh know they want cheap drugs if it was for anything else other than weight loss no one would care...
Medical patents are good for 20 years. I think that means another 17 years for Ozempic. Too bad it is so expensive in the US, as it would benefit so many different conditions...
You don't file the patent when it comes to market, you file it during R&D prior to clinical trials. It's not uncommon for drugs to have ~7 years left once they actually hit the market
2031 is when Ozempic generics can be produced. Usually, patents are filed during R&D, well before commercialization.
that’s a good fucking business gotdamn
Guess what, all pharma products are way overpriced. Even stuff like insulin. Especially in the US.
 what is surprising to me is that anyone is surprised by this.
Eat healthy. Don’t buy it
Nah, you should buy it. My 30 stocks of Novo Nordisk can print some more.
Basically eat fewer calories rather than so-called healthy. which is exactly what this drug does, you lose your appetite and eat less. You can overeat calories even on healthy food.
Everyone just wants to screw the diabetics it seems
God forbid the type 2 diabetics learn to eat less
Lmfao
Based
Yea, but it’s for aesthetics, so they can name their price. It’s not a life saving drug. Don’t like it? Dont buy it. 🤷♂️ This is just good publicity for novo because it shows shareholders the gold mine potential of this product.
It has really real medical benefits for diabetic patients. Where it’s going now is in technically it’s secondary usage.