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Conversation has been slow here. I feel like the standards have increased to the point where people are afraid to post (except of course for bad faith posters who don't care).
So, let me try a post that's more of a conversation starter and less of a PhD thesis.
According to Bernie Sanders, it costs about $5 to make a monthly dose of Ozempic, the blockbuster-weight loss drug. Americans pay about $1000/month. Canadians pay $155. Germans pay $59.
The stock of the company which makes the drug, Novo Nordisk, has doubled since the beginning of 2023. (I considered buying in 2022 but didn't because I thought I was already too late 💀) It now has a market cap of nearly $600 billion, making it the most valuable company in Europe.
I assume that if companies were forced to charge the same price in U.S. as they do in Europe, the global pharma industry would become insolvent.
So why is the United States paying for > 100% of global pharma research? And how can we fix the glitch?
A: You can't just look at the marginal cost, you have to consider the fixed costs that go into making the first dose. Drug development has a lot of candidate drugs that don't pan out and so they need big hits to pay for failed drugs.
B: For the past two years there have been and continue to be pretty severe GLP-1 supply shortages in the US, availability for those prescriptions in centralized health care systems ration access to GLP-1 meds much more strictly on top of similar supply shortages. Good luck getting Ozempic in Canada/Germany without a T2D diagnosis, and most US insurance does cover Ozempic at reasonable rates if you have a T2D diagnosis and can jump through some hoops with a prior authorization. If you just want a weight loss drug, then you're looking at $900+ every four weeks here.
C: To a large extent, the 'system' is working. US citizens are getting earlier access to these drugs. Companies are churning out new and better versions, Mounjaro/Zepbound is a big step up from semaglutide and there are even more and better drugs in development. High prices mean should help supply issues get sorted out sooner and more weight drugs means that US insurers should be able to force drug companies to compete and lower prices over time.
Yes. Bernie Sanders is quite dumb and honeymooned in the USSR. His understanding of economics is at the /r/antiwork tier.
Cool. Why don't they just cut off all supplies to Europe and sell exclusively to the US at 20x the price.
Where can I sign up to wait in line 12 months like a German and get drugs for 95% off?
$12,000/year is immense. Americans are being uniquely screwed here.
Edit: Apologies for unnecessary antagonism. No hard feelings I really just want more posts on this frickin' forum already!
Because they’re a European company. And I think you’re ignoring a major risk, which is that if the US tries to push for the same price, and the Danes say no, and the US says “fuck it, we’ll make generics”, the EU actually has a lot of leverage. A huge amount of US exports are intellectual property sold at zero marginal cost. The EU can make it legal to ignore those rights.
An argument that only works if Europe isn't fearful of Russia.
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