As we stand on the brink of another autumn, it appears fair to say that everyone in this country has an opinion of Big Pharma. Everyone regards it either as the provider of the medicine that fights off disease or as the despicable money machine that supplies only those drugs that provide a significant profit.
Sure they create the drugs that keep most of us alive but they do it in a format that is big business, not big health. The latest example is a scurvy little company from Cannonsburg, PA called Mylan. It makes EpiPens. It’s run by a sleazy bimbo named Heather Bresch, who in the last few years, as the cost of the EpiPen has risen from $57 to $600 has seen her personal compensation rise from $2.5 million to $19 million.
So before you start all the nonsense about research and development, know that most of the R&D on this product was done by the Department of Defense so it is not patentable. The product has been around for almost 100 years and the delivery system for around 40. This is just a sleazy company that has developed a clever marketing program, which has, so far, allowed them to gouge the public and the health system, charging $600 for barely $1 worth of medicine.
The EpiPen is a life saving drug. As a matter of full disclosure I will say that I use it and that at least twice it has saved my life when I was stung by bees and could no longer breathe. As stated above Mylan did not develop this drug; they acquired it and created a marketing plan for it. Now they are gouging the public and the medical insurance system.
We live in a society that exists with a legal system that sometimes for good or sometimes for evil prevents us from legally forcing a company to alter their prices. That’s just the capitalist system. But there are pressures that can be brought to bear, market pressures, and right now Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Programs is leading a demonstration that will present a 1 million signature petition to the Mylan corporate headquarters, demanding that they reduce the price of their product.
Meanwhile, Mylan, acting in exactly the way one would expect such slimy curs to act is making noise about price reducing coupons, and other absurd tactics instead of just dropping the price.
There are many ways to recognize despicable behavior and one of the principal ones is to look around and see who is applauding it. Lo and behold, we discover the re-emergence of Martin Shkreli, the lower than a snake’s belly, Wall Street dealer and drug company scurve. When sub-human offal like Shkreli jump to the defense of anything you can be certain that whatever they are praising is worthy only of condemnation.
For those with short memories, Shkreli is the rat that raided the price of a life saving drug, manufactured by a company he had just purchased by 5000 percent. That’s not a typo. It’s 5000%.
I always figured that guys like Shkreli should be condemned to be on a TV program where they send them out into the woods in a loincloth with a target painted on their back to be hunted by the families of those who had died because they couldn’t afford his price gouging. Once they get him, they cut him up and feed him to the turtles.
I know, that’s Trumpian in concept with a touch of ISIS but one can only hope. The realistic solution to scum like Shkreli and Bresch is for some big billionaire to form a charity that steps in and in a case like Mylan’s just starts manufacturing the same product at a cost that drastically undercuts Mylan and puts them out of business. It’s a charity so it doesn’t make a profit and the donations cover the loss until Mylan is gone and then they sell the formula to some legit company.
I know it’s probably not practical but it’s what I would do if I had Bill Gates money. I think I would have a lot of support. What do you think?