He's Baaaaaaaaaaack !! Ralph Nader: Big Pharma is crony capitalism out of control [View all]

[Rhinodawg]

Two recent news items about the voracious drug industry should call for a supine Congress to arouse itself and initiate investigations about the pay-or-die drug prices that are far too common.

The first item — a page one story in The New York Times — was about the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Foundation, which 15 years ago invested $150 million in the biotechnology company Vertex Pharmaceuticals to develop a drug for this serious lung disease. On Nov. 19, the foundation reported a return of $3.3 billion from that investment. Kalydeco, the drug developed with that investment, is taken daily by CF patients (who can afford it) and is priced at $300,000 a year per patient. Who can pay that price?

The second news release came from the drug industry-funded Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. The center’s Joseph DiMasi asserts that the cost of developing a new prescription medicine is about $2.558 billion, significantly higher than the previous estimate of $802 million that the center claimed in 2003.

The drug industry promoters use this ludicrous figure to justify sky-high drug prices for consumers. Unfortunately, the criticism of this inflated number does not receive adequate media attention.

http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/ralph-nader-big-pharma-is-crony-capitalism-out-of-control/article_5b51d23f-f6a6-5438-b4fc-41cbccb48ed2.html