60 Minutes all over the FDA's war against offshore/generic/fake meds. Spouting off about how "counterfeit" drugs are costing US firms (like Pfizer) billions of dollars (BOOOHOOHOOO!).

I missed the part about how ANYBODY died.

Your hard-earned US tax dollars at work protecting the landed few Kosher USDA-approved drug companies.

Generic: 10 bucks
FDA sanctified version: FIFTEEN HUNDRED USD

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/10/cost-spike-preterm-labor-drug-outrageous/

Good luck picking up meds in Thailand, I was with a fellow monger in Pattaya and we hit half a dozen pharmacies trying to get some sleeping pills for him, and the best we could do was some antihistamine.

In Thailand always look for Chinese owned pharmacies (look for Chinese text in the signage). All kinds of interesting stuff available under the counter in some of those. More so in Bangkok than in Pattaya though.

On sleeping pills in particular, never found any Ambian in Thailand nor even a Thai pharmacist who knew what Ambian was, even after looking it up in the book. However MUCH harder benzodiazepines were readily available under the counter.

Porker, we all appreciate grabbing some cheap and good foreign generic meds from time to time, but the truth is that one of the reasons meds are so expensive in the US is because they're are so cheap in the the 3rd world. Someone needs to pay for the R&D, and the R&D is legitimately very expensive. So a large part of what we pay, in the US, for a drug is to pay back the R&D and to pay for R&D on new drugs. Is it the best system? Possibly not, but it works pretty well.

When the off-shore companies formulate a knock-off, using the R&D from Pfizer or whoever basically for free, that means that people in those countries aren't even paying a penny towards the R&D effort. In the past, something that was $5.00 a pill in the US would have been sold, by Pfizer or whoever, for $2.00 a pill in India. Still expensive, but a much better deal than the US. Then, the generics that violate a patent start selling for $1.00 a pill, and the OEM gets zippo.

So, who pays for the R&D completely? The US and Europe. Who benefits from the drugs? The whole world.

So, while I see you're point that the drug companies make plenty of dough and should drop prices a bit, the generics who infringe on patents really do hurt us quite a bit.

Put another way, if the drug companies couldn't make enough money in the United States and other developed countries to pay for their investment in R&D costs, there wouldn't be any new drugs in the U.S., or any other country (including those that regularly infringe patents so as to sell the drugs cheaply).

But having said this, when politicians in the United States provide drug companies with windfalls without including meaningful cost containment provisions as a quid pro quo (such as was the case with the Bush/Republican prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients) any sympathy I might otherwise have for the drug companies (who plow a lot of their money into political lobbying) disappears.

The piece from the Fox News site oversimplifies matters (what a surprise) in this case, but there are some reasons to question the costs charged for some drugs.

Cat and Laguy note the R&D issue. R&D costs for new drugs are phenomenally high. Developing effective drugs is expensive, and proving they are safe as well as effective costs even more. Now we could say "Fuck the FDA" and let the Big Pharmas sell us whatever they want, and let the producers in CHina and Indonesia and India jump in and sell whatever they want, but I doubt few of us think THAT'S a good idea. There are countless examples of Big Pharma killing off lots of people in developing countries where FDA-like protections don't exist, and China alone is awash with charges of people being poisoned and killed by tainted drugs.

So if want both safe and effective, someone's gotta be willing to pay the R&D prices. That's part of the reason for the existence of protective patents. There's legitimate grounds for questioning the duration of most patents, but that's a slightly different issue. Illegal patent-busting generics undermine this system.

There are other instances, though, when a patent-holder declines to produce and sell a patented medication in the US, often because of the very high liability costs here. The oral version of the only drug recommended for treating gonorrhea (Cefixime) was dropped by its original patent holder. The FDA then awarded exclusive licensing rights to a single pharma (Lupin). They did this because no pharma wanted to assume the liability risks at this stage in the drug's lifespan while having to share sales/profits with other companies. Consequently, though, the drug is ridiculously expensive in the US. In this case it's not R&D cost recapture that drives the price, it's a combination of potential liability and monopolistic pricing. The consumer in the US does get fucked, as this drug is produced generically in other countries but those generic producers don't want to sell in the US due to liability costs.

R & D my ass.

If we simply BANNED television advertisements telling hypocondriacs to ask their doctor about every repackaged medication ever made, the pnharmacuetical company expenses would be cut in half.

Another unnecessary expense is the super-models that the pharmacuetical companies send around to doctors offices to convince them to prescribe the latest overpriced pill. I see these hotties many times that I visit the doctor, but you do not see them behind the Walmart pharmacy counter. Fortunately my doctor has avoided the temptation and prescribed generics for everything except VIAGRA.

Perhaps we could let Pfizer hold their patent a little longer if they agreed to price the pills at 150% of cost, but the current $16 per pill is robbery. Kill the patent and bring on the sildenifil citrate.

H4ass
I believe the patent for Viagra runs out in April of this year . Your prayers are answered.

At least in Brasil, when generics hit the market last year, the price of Viagra dropped 50%. The generics are priced about 50% below the new price of Viagra, or at about 25% the cost of a genuine V before the price reductions. Which seems reasonable. Some people will insist on the Pfizer product, others will be happy to save the dough for the generics. I haven't noticed a difference between the two, other than the generics are physically larger and have a slightly different taste. More filler in the generic formulation I suppose. Anyways, I have 3 dozen 50mgs in blister packs stashed away at home, with a couple of 100mgs as well. Definitely cheaper OTC in Brasil and with no need for a prescription.

Roadglide, concerning sleeping pills, they are real difficult everywhere. I guess boner pills and antibiotics are one thing - and at least in Brasil, you can't get antibiotics anymore. You may be able to kill yourself with Viagra if you tried, but it's much easier with a bottle of sleeping pills and I guess that kind of heat is something most pharmacies worldwide don't want to take a chance on.

They are starting to crack down on prescription drugs in Brazil as well - antibiotics, etc... even anything with a decongestant requires a prescription now. Increasingly this is being enforced, especially at the main chain pharmacies. As a side note, Lunesta is sold under the name of Imvovane. Luckily I have a pharmacy that - at least for now - still sells everything I want without a prescription.

So while Thailand is cracking down, the same is also now starting in Brazil. Luckily still unevenly enforced.

I've never had any problems getting anything in Bangkok (I don't use sleeping pills, so can't speak to that). I've been getting my generic viagra and cialis there for quite some time now.

Something that has long frustrated me is the price fixing here on the boner pills. At all the pharmacies here that I've checked over time, viagra, cialis, and levitra were all the same price. Funny that. When cialis and levitra came on the market, they didn't price themselves lower than viagra to steal market share. Funny that. And all three prices go up together. Hmmmm...

If you ever make it to Cambodia, that is the place to stock up on anything you want. Sleeping pills, pain killers (even with codeine) and they are very,very cheap. No prescriptions required for anything.