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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGilead, maker of $84,000 Hepatitis C drug, avoided $10 billion in taxes, report says
Gilead, maker of $84,000 Hepatitis C drug, avoided $10 billion in taxes, report saysBy Renae Merle and Carolyn Y. Johnson July 13 at 6:00 AM
Over the last few years, Gilead Sciences has grown into one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, fueled by the sales of expensive specialty treatments for hepatitis C. The company’s revenue has tripled since 2012, to $32.6 billion last year.
According to a report to be released Wednesday, Gilead has also developed another specialty: Avoiding billions in taxes.
The California-based pharmaceutical giant moved some of its assets to Ireland, apparently allowing income from some U.S. drug sales to be shifted abroad and taxed at a lower rate, according to Americans for Tax Fairness, a liberal advocacy group. It has also avoided nearly $10 billion in taxes by not bringing some of its foreign profits back to the United States, the group says.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/maker-of-84000-drug-avoided-10-billion-in-u-s-taxes-report-says/
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AntiBank
(1,339 posts)for just 6 months and it finally cleared my hep c after years of failure with the standard ribavirin/pegulated interferon therapy. Due to our single payer system the cost was zero (I had already hit the the roughly 250 usd rolling annual co pay cap). Clearing the hep c allowed me to get a liver transplant in Feb 2015 after only being on the wait list for 13 days. Cost for that was around 150 usd for the hospital stay of 14 days total. Liver is so far 100% aok. The Swedish government pays pennies on the pound for drugs compared to the USA due to not having to buy at crazy inflated prices.
In the USA, counting the operation and the drugs over the years (I had preexisting so no way could have gotten insurance) it would have set me back close to 1.5 million usd and I probably would have died waiting on the list.
Not having single payer universal health care is murder.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)or they would say 'oh, well, I guess you will just have to die', and you would...
Hep C drugs and a liver transplant for $500, cheap at twice that price and about 2000 times $500 in the good ole US of A (that would be about 1 million bucks)
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)800 overseas military bases. We throw trillions of dollars into our insane military budget and then claim there's no money for social security or national health care.
Me having to pay for the drugs in this story would be a death sentence. No way could i come up with that amount.
ismnotwasm
(41,975 posts)If you don't mind a couple of questions, Do you know how organ allocation is done in Sweden? In the US we have UNOS--I am assuming a like organization-and Why did you have to clear your HCV to get on the list? BTW congratulations on your transplant!
The price of the Harvoni here is still nearly a thousand dollars a pill--all the more criminal because it is essentially a cure for HCV. I know people who have been denied by thier insurance companies
AntiBank
(1,339 posts)and Iceland. The average wait is around 45 to 90 days once you are on the list. It's the shortest in the world. I had to clear Hep C because otherwise the new liver would get infected and the rate of decomposition would be much faster. In Sweden we have a board based out of Karolinska Sjukhuset in Huddinge that decides national allocation. That's also where I had the surgery. It's a top 10 in the world unit. My care from entry into the system via the Gastrocentrum unit up until I got the transplant was superb. We are talking a 6 year grinding downward spiral with my health though. But I recieved an incredible amount of aid all round in every facet of my life and I have become good friends with many of the doctors and nurses. If it wasn't for a complication with my jaw I would have been out of the hospital in only 9 days post op, an alltime record for the country. Every area of treatment is incredibly efficient and they are extremely picky about donor match, so they have one of the lowest rejection rates in the world. I have a very uncommon blood type for Scandinavia so I was lucky and had a match in only 13 days, as no one else on the list was competition for me. I will soon be down to only one antirejection drug, Tacrilimus. I get enraged when I here conservative bastards say that socialised universal heathcare is a disaster. It saved my live and it was basically free (we pay a lot of of tax here but get so much back). In fact, a person making a basic income of 40K to 75K USD per annum here pays LESS tax than a worker does does in NYC. Above 80K a Swede pays more BUT we get free university (our PhD students are actually paid to study, it varies from 40K usd per year up to over 100,000 in some cases depending on the degreed pursued) free healthcare, around 45 days or so paid vacation, free childcare, and up to one year paid leave from work for BOTH parents.
I pay my taxes with great pride. My money goes to help me and my fellow Swedes in so so many beneficial and vital ways.
ismnotwasm
(41,975 posts)A certain segment of the Transplant patients are on Havoni--it's always non formulary, and paid by insurances. A lot of my patients are too sick to get clear, so are transplanted with active disease. Or there are the patients who are on the list and almost too sick to transplant, OR not quite sick enough to be high in the list--then it's a horrible waiting game. I'm going to take your info back to talk about at work. Different countries do different things--for instance, South Korea has been doing living related Liver Transplants for some time--my institution just started.
Texasgal
(17,042 posts)transplant list... we've been waiting almost two years. 
AntiBank
(1,339 posts)I do know that certian areas in the US have much lower wait times than others. If memory serves Tennessee is very short. I think that's were Steve Jobs somehow got his in a hurry.
yes it was
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2015/06/24/your-new-liver-is-only-a-learjet-away-first-of-three-parts/#62baf1f93b4b
As a result of these geographic variations in supply and demand, patients in Northern California wait more than six years, on average, for a liver transplant, whereas the majority of patients in Tennessee receive new livers in less than three months.
hack89
(39,171 posts)GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)In which case the answer is no. Here is a summary on how it works...
"The double Irish arrangement was a tax strategy that some multinational corporations used to lower their corporate tax liability. The strategy has ceased to be available since 1 January 2015, though those already engaging in the arrangement have until 2020 to find another arrangement. The strategy used payments between related entities in a corporate structure to move income from a higher-tax country to a lower or no tax jurisdiction. It relies on the fact that Irish tax law does not include transfer pricing rules as does the United States[1] and those of many other jurisdictions. Specifically, Ireland has territorial taxation, and does not levy taxes on income booked in subsidiaries of Irish companies that are outside the state."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
edit: Google used this to pay roughly 2.3% effective tax rate on billions and billions of dollars of earnings one year
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)It had zero competition for about a year before a similar drug that does the same thing came to market.
Untreated Hep C is the leading cause of liver cancer in the developed world.
The cost of a liver transplant is about a quarter mil, and post-transplant drugs can be anywhere from $4 plan to $100K/yr and you have no advance idea of which ones and in what combination are going to work for you particularly. People die waiting for livers. Fixing a liver soon enough to keep somebody in the factory equipment saves their life and potentially the life of somebody behind them on the transplant list.
It's literally cheaper than the alternatives.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)a funeral only costs about $10,000 give or take a thousand or two.
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)That's why my mom is dead.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)Only country in the developed world where you can actually die from a medical condition because of lack of funds. I find that truly disgusting!
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)She was finally approved for the drug to cure her hep c (Sovaldi in her case) while she was in the ICU dying of multiple organ failure after a bout of pneumonia. The drugs to treat her lungs caused further damage to her already badly damaged liver.
If she'd been approved even a few weeks faster she'd almost certainly be alive today.
AntiBank
(1,339 posts)and thats just the operation. Not counting a lifetime on antirejection drugs, and not counting the years of constant medical appt and drugs leading up to it.
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)Mom died of liver failure in April after a bout of pneumonia, but it looks like we have a good shot at saving my dad. He's had his Hep C treated (he was in a trial) but now he needs a transplant due to liver cancer. They caught it small, it's responded well to treatment, he's got a really good shot. I'm going to be his donor if the paperwork all gets moved in time.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)on part of a liver...I bet you are thrilled you can be a donor.
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)and my dad has the worst possible blood type.
One of the reasons we decided to do live donation (aside from being at a really excellent transplant center with a good record of donor outcomes) is that it frees up a cadaver liver for somebody else. There aren't enough to go around and people die waiting. If my dad gets a healthy liver and somebody else moves up the list into his slot, that's almost like saving two lives.
