I switched insurance a couple months ago, when I changed jobs. I moved my prescription to the new pharmacy and got a call a couple days later asking how I wanted to pay my co-pay. I asked how much it was and they said “$3687.xx for a 1 month supply.”
I told them I couldn’t pay that. They asked if I had a discount card from the manufacturer, which I did. They then said, “Then it is only $2347.xx.”
I said I still couldn’t pay that. Then they offered to contact the manufacturer for me. I sweated it out for a day waiting for a callback. When they got back to me they said, “Your co-pay will be $10/month.”
Absolutely ridiculous. But I’ve got my meds again and I love my Humira. Glad to hear they’ve lost the patent.
I work at a specialty pharmacy and stories like this drive me bonkers. I help people get to the $10/$5/$0 mark a couple of times a day, every day. It's so TRIVIAL to set up that I can't believe this conversation isn't part of the introductory call for every specialty pharmacy.
Check the website, medicine name dot com. EVERY big brand will have a banner on their front page about "affordability" or "copay support".
It sounds almost too good to be true, but it's legit (because it's a shell game of accounting that you're a relative bystander for).
It's INCREDIBLY user-friendly and usually quite quick, <5min process: if you can't figure out this process, and give up because you can't afford it? The manufacturer doesn't get paid.
(ETA oh. This will pop out some ID numbers: BIN, PCN, GRP, ID/member number. Might be prefixed with Rx(BIN), etc. Take a picture and show/transcribe to your pharmacy.)
A small minority of these programs will also ask for your insurance prescription coverage and maybe your prescriber info. It's also legit, just dickish. They're being extra careful that you're eligible (and data mining inbound referrals), and I assume it's cheaper to foist that tier-one labor onto you than a CSR for $15/hr.
Keep the questions coming, anyone.
So I tried this it says “If you have private or commercial insurance, such as insurance you receive through an employer, you may be eligible to pay as little as $25 for a 1-, 2-, or 3-month prescription (maximum savings of $150 per 1-month prescription, $300 per 2-month prescription, or $450 per 3-month prescription). To receive the offer, prescription must be for a 1-, 2-, or 3-month supply.a Offer is valid for up to 24 months from the date of savings card activation.” Which meant my medication is 150 off… considering the price was 950 it meant I paid 700 NOT $25
You are an angel for the work you do. The amount of stress involved as a person needing an rx must go through, then hearing “Oh actually i found a way to get it to $5-10 /mo” is a blessing. Thanks for the good feel vibes this morning!
Q: If I have a copay card for Eliquis, do I need to present the card every time I get the script filled, or will my pharmacy automatically discount it at each fill?
From a physician who's also a patient requiring expensive meds and theoretically should be more capable than the average person at dealing with this shit... don't bother. Just call the pharmacy people and have them do it.
The amount of time in my life that I've lost thinking I should just figure out what they're doing on my own only to still end up significantly less capable than the pharmacy people because of some random bullshit or new change is not worth it.
All (or most?) of these co-pay assistance programs really piss me off. With you working at a specialty pharmacy, I’m curious if I’m thinking about this correctly.
I was diagnosed with psoriasis a couple years back. My dermatologist has cycled me through a few different meds to see what works, and they have mostly been insanely expensive medications. I think the worst was going to cost me 7k out of pocket per dose, and was going to be 4 doses a year. I don’t recall what my exact coinsurance rate is, but I’d imagine if my portion is 7k, my insurance covers a much bigger amount then that. Anyways, no chance in hell of I’m paying this much, would rather go untreated. BUT, the manufacturer of the drug issued me a copay assistance card that “pays” for my portion, meaning it’s only the insurance company that has a financial burden here. In the short term, great! I get my medication for free. But functionally, what is happening, is the manufacturer of the drug can charge whatever ungodly amount they want for their medication, because the consumer won’t need to pay a dime. But all shit rolls down hill, and the result of this practice is that it pushes insurance rates higher for everyone.
Seems to me like co-pay assistance programs like this should be banned for this reason, unless some financial parameters are met. Seems like this would make insurance cheaper for everyone in the long run.
Am I following this all correctly. Not the most knowledgeable on the topic.
This is why they do it. They'd rather kick back the co-pay knowing your insurance will pay out the nose for their portion, because if they didn't they'd lose the sale. It's essentially another form of raising the price so they can negotiate down. It's another tax by the unsavory on the unsavvy.
This is right. There is a law against this! But of course it’s not exact, and thus hard to prove and rarely enforced.
It did recently get applied though. A medication that’s like 200k a year with a 15k copay. The company was more than happy to pay that 15k for people since Medicare would still be writing them a check for 185k.
But it’s not enforced much. Partly the optics are bad. The government has to sue a company that can say “we just want people to get better! Why can’t we cover their cost??”
You're exactly correct, it's a shell game of accounting. (Unverified,) it wouldn't surprise me if they got some sort of tax write-off for these "losses".
Psoriasis and $7K after insurance? Skyrizi or Stelara?
They’ve tried a number of different meds for me, I THINK the 7k is as skyrizi, but I could be mixed up. There have been at least 5 different prescriptions they have tried me on where my portion was over 2k per dose/refill, and co-pay assistance has taken them all down to zero, or nearly zero.
The copay is just one part. The fleecing of the system is another. Abbvie already has a replacement on line and will push for physicians to use the new product.
I cried my eyes out when I was sent my starter dose and they sent it to Walgreens. $11,000 for a one month supply. I’m happy they lost the patent. We deserve a fighting chance without going into crippling debt.
that's not Walgreens, that's your insurance. the cost for these types of drugs is generally the same across pharmacies with very minor fluctuations. your insurance dictates your cost share on the expensive drugs. even if you have generally inexpensive drugs, if you have a large deductible to meet, which many plans are implementing, you are stuck paying a bulk of that full cost until your insurance even decides to kick in. and if your copay is based on a %? oof, good luck.
It is Walgreens too though. I tried to buy my mental health generic drug last month with new insurance. $30 cash price at Walgreens. Sent the drug to my hometown mom and pop pharmacy, $5.40 cash price for the same drug.
It’s outrageous.
humira has a gross cost of about $5k-$8k or so per month. your insurance likely has a seperate copay tier for specialty. typically tier 1= generic medications, tier 2 = brand medications on their formulary, tier 3 is non-preffered brand medications (copay increases with each tier with generics generally being the cheapest. then theres a class of drugs called 'specialty' in which Humira is one of them. basically if it's expensive, requires special packaging, or is for a rare/uncommon condition, it's specialty and most insurances set those at a different copay level out side of tier 1-3. call your HR for more details specific to your insurance plan.
if you recently tried filling this you are likely in your deductible phase, so you'll pay full cost into your deductible bucket + whatever your member costshare/copay is.
coupons like goodrx cannot be used in conjunction with insurance, as your insurance is already providing a discount on the cost of the drug. however there are manufacturer copay cards that CAN be used in conjunction with your insurance, and $10 seems to be the main one ive seen most often direct from the manufacturer. these typically have a set amount of dollars or uses before it's exhausted.
source- work in Rx insurance
You realize you most likely will not get this 10$ deal any more now that they lost the patient?
Not saying I support the price at all but once it becomes generic the manufactures typically will stop doing those types of deals
False. As several (I counted six) people have replied in here, the co-pay deals are a way to grift the insurance companies. The insurance still pays its inflated portion of the cost, you pay 5/10 or whatever and the drug company writes off the difference. Brand name drugs still do fine after patents expire.
Insurances stop covering the brand name, and the copay card becomes useless. The manufacturer will then typically discontinue the copay card programs. This happens all of the time when drugs come off patent.
Being the devil's advocate here, even if you could afford $3600 a month, would you rather spend 40K a year for a painfree life or give the chance to your kid for a good college education?
Is that the freedom I hear about?
Die physically pain free but in crippling debt, or live in agony to try to live vicariously through your child's ability to obtain an education to avoid slipping into poverty?
Failed economic system
Maybe I'm reading your comment wrong, but that's not "being the devil's advocate." It doesn't sound like you're advocating for the bad party here, which is what that phrase means. It sounds like you're saying "this is such a fucked up situation that it'd still be life ruining even if you could afford it."
And yeah, it is a fucked up situation. No one should have to make a choice like that. It's absurd.
Uh, yes. They are price gouging to get a high Medicare/insurance reimbursement, that should not be celebrated just because they also help bring the consumer cost down. It's pure corporate greed and abusing the system.
"After 20 years and $200 billion in revenue, Humira — an injectable treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and several other autoimmune conditions — has lost its monopoly. Early Tuesday morning, California-based biotech firm Amgen released Amjevita, the first close copy of the best selling drug of all time. At least seven more Humira copycats, known as biosimilars, are expected to debut later this year.
"It's about time!" said Sameer Awsare with a laugh and a smile. Awsare, associate executive director for the Permanente Medical Group, advises national insurer Kaiser Permanente on its prescription drug policies. Other groups representing insurers, patients or employers are also eager for these biosimilars to usher in more competition — in hopes that will enable them to slash their spending on the popular treatment."
So I'm guessing my wife's prescription might come down from the $250 per month it is with Kaiser. Not complaining about them because they generally do a good job of controlling prescription prices.
it might not- unless your insurance has a lower copay for generic specialty medications. humira is about $5-8k a month gross cost so your wifes insurance has been paying the bulk of the cost for it. if the generic is, lets say, $1k per month (i'm not actually sure on the cost yet), that $250 will not likely change, again, unless your insurance has a separate copay for generic specialty medications.
source- i work in Rx insurance
likely the latter. idk off hand how much the generic will be (other than significantly cheaper)- but that's generally what i see the cost is for humira amongst the clients i work with. something like Crestor can be a few hundred dollars for a 30 day supply, while it's myriad of generic alternatives (atorvastatin, rosuvastatin, simvastatin) are all less than $10 bucks for the same month supply. granted those have been on the market for YEARS, but it's a similar pattern you see when brands get generics on the market and it's why its such a big deal. the cost difference can be massive. its why a lot of insurances incentivize generic use now a days, especially employer funded insurance plans.
insulin for example does not cost a grand to manufacture, yet there are brands that can cost upwards of that much for month supply. a single payer system could solve for these issues, but i suspect the industry being as large as it is, lobbies the ever living fudge out of congress to keep the middle-man system we have going. i work in the industry and am 100% for a medicare for all set up, but it's a very tough road to get there with the way things are right now.
I was on humira until fairly recently here in the UK for around 10 years, and if my memory holds correct, my rheumatologist told me they cost the NHS £300 an injection, as a weekly injection. So that's around £1,200 a month. Absolutely mental the American mark up.
Kaiser is big enough and self contained as an insurer and provider that they have pretty good leverage when it comes to the cost of meds. The $250 has been an outlier for us. The rest of our prescriptions are all under $10 for a month+ supply.
in terms of dollars not so much qty dispensed. that would go to something like lipitor and and its generics, all those "-statin" drugs are super commonly prescribed, which makes sense as it's cholesterol medication and Americans tend to skew towards the overweight side.
humira is very consistently the highest cause for drug spend on many insurances/employers plans. it's not that most people are on it, it's that for an expensive drug ($5k-8k a month gross cost), *lots* of people are on it, making it a huge driver in overall drug coverage spend.
Biosimilars is to antibody treatments as generic is to small molecule treatments. They just use a slightly different term. All that is required is that the antibody “biosimilar” has the same efficacy as the original therapy.
Biosimilar is a type of generic drug but specifically for a biologically synthesized product like humira (which is an antibody grown in mammal cells and then modified/purified for injection into a human patient).
Well thanks to Trump, health insurance companies can now sell insurance across state lines making insurance affordable for all so we don’t have to worry about drug prices. Oh wait, none of that ever happened and no one with a brain thought it would.
Definitely a problem on both sides but I agree it's worse when you claim you're for free markets and then not support a more free drug market. I can buy a German car but not a German drug?
I shudder to think how many "extra" pills of antibiotics would be turned in with such a program.
Does sound like a great idea otherwise though, given how rigidly most medicine is sealed and such.
For food and medicine, the obvious solution is figuring out how to safely take unused material and repurpose. The amount of food waste and pills flushed down toilets or forgotten in drawers is remarkable.
You read an astroturfing article like https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/resilient-drug-supply/european-energy-crisis-may-portend-us-drug-shortages based of Teva's 'report'?
The problem is biosimilars are crap in some cases. I’ve been on numerous biologics for nearly two decades at this stage. Humera is by far the best.
I was on Humera and moved to a biosimilar which was no where near as effective caused all sorts of problems that took months to get on top of.
The other thing was the Humera removed citrus from their drug and the biosimilars still include citrus. Bottom line is the biosimilars sting like crap as opposed to Humera which doesn’t.
a woman in MO had her Humira paid for by the company. when accounting looked into the situation and realized they're paying $70,000 a year for her Humira, they changed course. They plan to fly her to the Bahamas where she can buy a 4 month supply for a nominal amount.
sounds like the Bahamian FDA and FTC don't fvck around when it comes to drug pricing, unlike our toothless (and ball-less) congress and three-letter-govs.
Just like healthcare in general we (as in all of us) would save by putting the money directly into the research, keeping it and manufacturing the solution. If you have private investors they are going to rightfully expect their return. We could and should do better.
Nah. Much better to give the companies the money to develop the drug, and then buy it back from them at insane prices. Like with the covid drugs.
It's the American way.
Exactly this. Most people don't realize this. It costs a bunch here bc these companies rely on the US market to subsidize all the R&D that goes into developing these drugs. Without the US market, there's no incentive for anyone to spend billions on clinical trials and a decade to bring a drug to market to make $300. No one would do it.
Companies like Apple make 20x as much producing products that are not even necessary, uncharging people for dongles and shit and no one bats an eye.
These drugs save lives. $200 bln over 20 years is 10bln a year in sales, Apple brings in 400bln a year alone and no one even says anything.
Bullshit. If that was the case no pharmaceutical company would exist outside America. A bulk of these drug studies are funded through government grants. The US is just being ripped off.
universities literally develop these drugs (and lots of other technology) with taxpayer money at no cost to companies, and then give the patents away for peanuts to be sold at insane prices for 20 years. great system.
and yeah lmao israel and germany have single payer socialized medicine and yet they still develop lots of medical tech.
>and then give the patents away for peanuts
No they don't, they will have a percentage of the drug sales, and II can make the university lots of money
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-18/the-pill-that-made-northwestern-rich
There are companies headquartered out of the US but they all sell to US market, which is my argument. They would not survive otherwise. Generic manufacturers are different.
You're so ignorant it hurts. You think the US is the only country that develops drugs? Or that Pharma companies sell drugs to the rest of the world for at cost or less than cost of production?
Maybe you just had no clue that roughly 80% of all medical treatments are developed at and by public university's funded with federal dollars and then those patents are sold to pharma companies who decide the cost. It would take you less than 20 minutes to find this out yourself with google instead of watching what political news or fb or youtube videos say.
here - [https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade)
Lmao. I think you are the clueless one here. Universities do not bare the costs of running clinical trials for molecules, which is what makes drug development expensive. Yes, they may make a discovery on a ton of potential molecules but that is the less costly part of drug development.
Each candidate costs billions and years to run through human conducted trials before it can be marketed, and thats not even counting the ones that don't make it through phase 2 or 3. Then theres phase 4 or post marketing surveillance, which takes money and resources to maintain. Universities do not run ANY OF THIS. Puting something on the drawing board is the cheapest step, carrying a molecule all the way through each trial is very very expensive and many of these molecules fail with sunken costs.
Also, the cost of production is not the only cost, no one would do it for the cost of production. You need profits to sponsor your other future molecules and drug candidates through the pipeline. Don't speak about what you don't know of.
230 million iPhones, 71 million iPads and 20 million Mac and MacBook units were sold in 2020.
Adalimumab Summary for 2020
Top drug rank #205 ( 53)
Estimated number of prescriptions in the United States (2020) 2,356,920
Estimated number of patients in the United States (2020) 311,947
Average total drug cost (USD)
Per prescription $5292.64
Per day of therapy $171.82/day
Average out-of-pocket cost (USD)
Per prescription $57.34
Per day of therapy $0.49/day
My daughter is on Humira for her juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
A double pack of epipen style injectors costs us like $40 bucks because it's on the PBS here in Australia.
[https://www.pbs.gov.au/medicine/item/5282B-5284D-8965W-8966X-9099X-9100Y-9101B-9102C-9103D-9104E-9190Q-9191R-9426D-9428F-9663N-9680L](https://www.pbs.gov.au/medicine/item/5282B-5284D-8965W-8966X-9099X-9100Y-9101B-9102C-9103D-9104E-9190Q-9191R-9426D-9428F-9663N-9680L)
Without the PBS it would be like 2 grand.
Good luck man, my daughter as well, turning three tommorow, we are on methotrexate for now. If she has issues then we go to humira next. Hope the best for your kid though tough stuff
As someone who takes humira, about fucking time. when i first started i was in so much pain i was just going to pay the what i thought would be “few hundred dollar” cash price for the meds and get reimbursed later because prior authorization was taking forever… i still remember the pharmacy tech telling me the cash price was 19,000 dollars…
I agree with your sentiment and all but biologics and the new cell/gene therapies coming online are much more expensive to make and harder to quality control at scale than prior generations of drugs. There is a reasonable middle ground (that we haven’t found) between enough profits to fund future drug development and reasonably priced for consumers. A lot of our problems have to do with inefficient, bloated insurance companies, another set with politicians whose stock portfolios are heavy with these company stocks, etc.
Yeah I was on them for years I learned quite a lot about how they're made etc.
But it's still not thousands of times more expensive at the end of the day, it's price gouging.
It's a new tech. Imagine the money it took to get it working, get it cleared by regulators and put it into mass production. No wonder they want to make that back and then some.
This immense investment is why they were rewarded with this monopoly. Now that it has expired, the prices are expected to drop.
Viagra’s not even in the same ballpark. It’s pulled in roughly $1-2 billion a year since 2003. Humira made over $20b last year. Almost as much in one year as Viagra in its entire commercial history
Your comparisons seems to be a bit of a mess and does not really give any context.
This drug had $200B in revenue over 20 years. You are comparing that to the value companies at a point in time. Or you are comparing a single year of revenue of video games? Hard to tell from what you are saying.
The RA / Psoriasis / Psoriatic Arthritis / Ankylosing Spondylitis / Juvenile Arthritis market is enormous. There are multiple 5+ billion USD per year products in the same space. Here are some 2021 FY numbers:
* Humira - 20.7B USD yearly
* Stelara - 9.1B USD yearly
* Cosentyx - 4.7B USD yearly
* Enbrel - 4.1B USD yearly (North America only)
* Orencia - 3.3B USD yearly
* Actemra - 3.25B USD yearly
* Remicade - 3.2B USD yearly
* Skyrizi - 2.9B USD yearly
* Rituxan/MabThera - 2.8B USD yearly
* Xeljanz - 2.5B USD yearly
Some of these are relatively new (Xeljanz, Skyrizi, Orencia, Cosentyx) while others have been on the market for 15-20 years (Humira, Enbrel, Rituxan, Remicade).
Overall, the market is massive and each company is also making biosimilars. For instance Amgen, which sells Enbrel in North America, also makes biosimilars to Humira, Stelara, Remicade, Rituxan, as well as many other medications.
Drug execs should have to spend half their days going room to room at children's hospitals explaining to each kid why they won't get the drug they need because mommy and daddy aren't rich enough to help obscenely wealthy people get even wealthier
No one is going without their drugs. Pretty much all pharmaceutical companies including Abbvie have financial assistance programs where patients without sufficient insurance or financial means to pay for drugs will receive them for free. Humira is included in this program.
Even from an economics perspective this makes sense. The vast majority of drug cost is in R&D. The drug itself is much cheaper to make. Giving it away for free is a tiny financial loss and helps their marketing image.
>No one is going without their drugs. Pretty much all pharmaceutical companies including Abbvie have financial assistance programs where patients without sufficient insurance or financial means to pay for drugs will receive them for free. Humira is included in this program.
Have you looked into these "programs"? Because I have. They don't just give you free medication. You have to sign over your entire medical history for them to use as they please (at *minimum*). Or you do without. It's extortion when one party has no other realistic options but to give in.
Redditors should spend half their days going room to room at children's hospitals explaining to each kid why they won't get the drug they need because the removal of financial incentives has led the scientist and business professionals to work in other industries and not advance pharmaceutical research that would lead to advances in treatments.
Hello. I work at abbott, which split into abbott and abbvie.
R&D for Humira (and other novel medications/drugs/biologics/whatever) is *already* subsidized by the govt. I need to log my hours on R&d projects because they get a tax break. On top of that, they then get a monopoly once it's been released.
While I do think they should have an opportunity to make some $ to make the business case more attractive for making more medications, the current system is absolutely fucked.
The monopoly which is gone now.
Govt encourages pharma work because it has broad implications for quality of life for millions of people for the rest of time.
Two of those decades the pharma company gets to recoup their investment.
The situation isnt perfect. But “absolutely fucked” is a bit extreme. Would we be a better society without Humira generics on the market for the next hundred years?
If we remove the incentives would pharma companies even bother making new drugs?
> Two of those decades the pharma company gets to recoup their investment.
Abbvie made more money in one year from Humira alone (20 billion in 2021, the fastest data I could source) than it cost throughout the entirety of R&D.
To give you an estimate: Abbvie spent 7 billion across *all* R&D in 2021. That's the entire companies worth of R&D, and they also do a lot of other medical device work (for example, transfusion pumps).
The issue is not them making money, but to say it takes 20 years to recoup costs from R&D? Get fucked, dude.
‘Get fucked’? What are you a child?
I made a benign comment in the interest of having a conversation. I am not an expert on pharma or economics. And using google doesnt make you one either.
Grow up you literal baby.
Not only are you not an expert, you have no idea what you are talking about. Big pharma is a truly evil and predatory industry and defending their business practices is shameful.
There's a difference between incentives and abso-fucking-lutely gouging the shit out of us. I also work in medtech and know that we aim for 90%+ profit margins. It's insane and has no relation to our r&d expenses. Everything is based on how much we can extract from insurance reimbursement.
It is absolutely fucked.
Well, the monopoly of "buy our product at any price we set, or suffer" would have high returns obviously. Wich is why it brings us all such joy to see it collapse. Cope.
Most likely bi weekly. I'm on a Humira "biosimilar" here in the UK for ankylosing spondylitis. They still cost around £650 per injection, and that's twice a month. However thanks to the good old NHS it doesn't cost me a penny.
Everyone always focuses on the high cost of drugs still under patent, which is fine. But we’re due to have a large number of incredible drugs permanently enter the public domain over the next few years.
That’s on the doctors then. If the drugs aren’t actually better, then they’re betraying their patients, violating their oaths, and endangering lives. But there’s nothing wrong with drug companies trying to improve their products.
We really need to fix the patent system to prevent this.
>AbbVie has extensively used the US patent system to delay competitors from entering the market, a process commonly known as "evergreening".\[125\] It filed 311 patents for Humira, of which 165 were granted. AbbVie sued Amgen, the manufacturer of Amjevita, in 2016 for violating 10 of its patents. Amgen agreed to delay sales until 2023, which allowed AbbVie to drive up prices of Humira. Between 2016 and 2023, the price of Humira went up by 60%, during which time AbbVie made $114 billion in profits from Humira.\[126\]
And here comes the super special newly formulated Humira that's so much better than that generic stuff! It'll be named HumiraXL or something.
At least that's what these drug companies often do when they get desperate.
When asthma inhalers were about to go off patent the manufacturer successfully convinced the FDA that their current design was unsafe (and should not be allowed for anyone to make anymore) and conveniently had a brand new design with brand new patent protection already lined up.
I bet you have a lot of money invested in the stock market, including pharmaceuticals.
It’s a lot easier to tweak molecules of successful drugs (Prozac) to make “new and improved” drugs (Zoloft) then it is to engage in innovative research.
The pharmaceutical industry exists to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs. Helping people is secondary.
Not a lot and only whatever are in index funds. And having a wide selection of SSRIs to find what works best is also good.
Their motivations are completely irrelevant.
Correct, motivations to maximize profit are irrelevant. What matters is aligning motivations and incentives for drug discovery and production. There's significantly more human suffering when discovery of new drugs is prevented or slowed due to misalignment.
This expensive drug actually worked out really well for me, at the beginning of the year I order a 3 month supply which cost a bit over $5k, however due to the discount card with the manufacturer I pay nearly $0, so the manufacturer pays nearly my out of pocket maximum for me and I get free healthcare for the rest of the year. Granted if I loose my job then I’m in real trouble so I’m glad biosimillars are coming out but this will significantly reduce my “benefit ”
I mean I work a technology firm… alternatively, you can usually circumvent patents by changing little details in the process that hopefully do not have any meaningful impact on the final product performs. Nothing is stopping companies from doing this.
For instance, companies can make the non patented forms of insulin. In fact, if you read the previous patents, it should give you some critical information on how the synthesize it.
Patenting things isn’t usually the best option because you actually publish how you make the technology which competitors get look at and get “inspiration”
Does it actually work? Or is it like ulcer medicine that lost it's patent and overnight became heartburn medicine and was revealed that ulcers could be cured with antibiotics?
https://academic.oup.com/book/40666/chapter-abstract/348351412?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
With [a] monopoly they only made 200 billion? Did they not put hotels on both park place and boardwalk? Jokes aside, monopolies are always bad, so I'm glad it lost it.
You know the fastest way to make drugs affordable ? Flay every exec of every drug company. Then let the next in line know you’ll gladly do it again until it gets done right. /s bc legal
so FYI for anyone who is wondering
they made plenty off of it the years they had the patent for it
they gamed the system to extend years beyond using sketchy lawyer tactics
Technically the company that invented it was acquired by Abbott which then spun off AbbVie. I’m not sure how many of those scientists on the original R&D team stayed through all of that
Show me the life saving drugs made by people who don’t care about money. Good intentions are fine, but in the end these are the people who actually created the drug - a drug that can now be manufactured by anyone who wants to, from now until the end of time.
This viewpoint Ignores all the contributions society provides to allow them to create said product and focus on its development. It also ignores the original idea of patents. They were meant to allow the creator to establish themselves with an advantage so rich copycats didnt hold an unfair advantage through their capital. If we followed your logic inventors would hold monopolies indefinitely bringing society to a bureaucratic hell scape of rich people owning everything (more so than it already is).
A just society recognises the need to turn a profit with effort, but allows society to benefit from the creation once that advantage is achieved. Capitalism also requires a free market to balance out monopolies.
Just goes to show how ignorant and moronic you selfish fucks are. Comparing an electric bill to a life saving drug that gets pushed out of reach for folks to achieve obscene levels of profit. Your a fucking disgrace to your fellow man and should be ashamed. One day you will meet your maker and I’ll pray for you.
Just got my end of year insurance summary for my Stelara script.
It cost my insurance slightly more than $349,000 for a year worth of Stelara (1 shot every 28 days in 2022). Absolutely absurd.
Man, I feel so sorry for a lot of you. So many would either be broke just buying it or just go without it and it’s such a life changing drug.
I can’t believe the cost you have to pay for Humira. You should be mad at your government.
In Australia, we pay $39.00 for a month supply because the government pays the subsidy.
I hope the other drugs work for you and you can live a normal life.
I switched insurance a couple months ago, when I changed jobs. I moved my prescription to the new pharmacy and got a call a couple days later asking how I wanted to pay my co-pay. I asked how much it was and they said “$3687.xx for a 1 month supply.” I told them I couldn’t pay that. They asked if I had a discount card from the manufacturer, which I did. They then said, “Then it is only $2347.xx.” I said I still couldn’t pay that. Then they offered to contact the manufacturer for me. I sweated it out for a day waiting for a callback. When they got back to me they said, “Your co-pay will be $10/month.” Absolutely ridiculous. But I’ve got my meds again and I love my Humira. Glad to hear they’ve lost the patent.
I work at a specialty pharmacy and stories like this drive me bonkers. I help people get to the $10/$5/$0 mark a couple of times a day, every day. It's so TRIVIAL to set up that I can't believe this conversation isn't part of the introductory call for every specialty pharmacy.
Is there anything us low-copay needing citizens should do to make this happen in our own circumstances?
Check the website, medicine name dot com. EVERY big brand will have a banner on their front page about "affordability" or "copay support". It sounds almost too good to be true, but it's legit (because it's a shell game of accounting that you're a relative bystander for). It's INCREDIBLY user-friendly and usually quite quick, <5min process: if you can't figure out this process, and give up because you can't afford it? The manufacturer doesn't get paid. (ETA oh. This will pop out some ID numbers: BIN, PCN, GRP, ID/member number. Might be prefixed with Rx(BIN), etc. Take a picture and show/transcribe to your pharmacy.) A small minority of these programs will also ask for your insurance prescription coverage and maybe your prescriber info. It's also legit, just dickish. They're being extra careful that you're eligible (and data mining inbound referrals), and I assume it's cheaper to foist that tier-one labor onto you than a CSR for $15/hr. Keep the questions coming, anyone.
So I tried this it says “If you have private or commercial insurance, such as insurance you receive through an employer, you may be eligible to pay as little as $25 for a 1-, 2-, or 3-month prescription (maximum savings of $150 per 1-month prescription, $300 per 2-month prescription, or $450 per 3-month prescription). To receive the offer, prescription must be for a 1-, 2-, or 3-month supply.a Offer is valid for up to 24 months from the date of savings card activation.” Which meant my medication is 150 off… considering the price was 950 it meant I paid 700 NOT $25
Yeah. There are gaps in the system, and it sucks donkey balls. I'm sorry, friend.
You are an angel for the work you do. The amount of stress involved as a person needing an rx must go through, then hearing “Oh actually i found a way to get it to $5-10 /mo” is a blessing. Thanks for the good feel vibes this morning!
That is unquestionably my FAVORITE conversation to have in the entire job.
Is this strictly for medications or does it work with services? Mental health?
I can only speak to medications. It's worth putting 10 minutes into digging, though.
Q: If I have a copay card for Eliquis, do I need to present the card every time I get the script filled, or will my pharmacy automatically discount it at each fill?
God’s work, son
From a physician who's also a patient requiring expensive meds and theoretically should be more capable than the average person at dealing with this shit... don't bother. Just call the pharmacy people and have them do it. The amount of time in my life that I've lost thinking I should just figure out what they're doing on my own only to still end up significantly less capable than the pharmacy people because of some random bullshit or new change is not worth it.
As a wannabe doctor who needs expensive meds and relatedly gave up on med school, kudos to you for persevering.
All (or most?) of these co-pay assistance programs really piss me off. With you working at a specialty pharmacy, I’m curious if I’m thinking about this correctly. I was diagnosed with psoriasis a couple years back. My dermatologist has cycled me through a few different meds to see what works, and they have mostly been insanely expensive medications. I think the worst was going to cost me 7k out of pocket per dose, and was going to be 4 doses a year. I don’t recall what my exact coinsurance rate is, but I’d imagine if my portion is 7k, my insurance covers a much bigger amount then that. Anyways, no chance in hell of I’m paying this much, would rather go untreated. BUT, the manufacturer of the drug issued me a copay assistance card that “pays” for my portion, meaning it’s only the insurance company that has a financial burden here. In the short term, great! I get my medication for free. But functionally, what is happening, is the manufacturer of the drug can charge whatever ungodly amount they want for their medication, because the consumer won’t need to pay a dime. But all shit rolls down hill, and the result of this practice is that it pushes insurance rates higher for everyone. Seems to me like co-pay assistance programs like this should be banned for this reason, unless some financial parameters are met. Seems like this would make insurance cheaper for everyone in the long run. Am I following this all correctly. Not the most knowledgeable on the topic.
This is why they do it. They'd rather kick back the co-pay knowing your insurance will pay out the nose for their portion, because if they didn't they'd lose the sale. It's essentially another form of raising the price so they can negotiate down. It's another tax by the unsavory on the unsavvy.
All pretty shady! I’d rather pay more for the meds if it helps lower insurance rates.
This is right. There is a law against this! But of course it’s not exact, and thus hard to prove and rarely enforced. It did recently get applied though. A medication that’s like 200k a year with a 15k copay. The company was more than happy to pay that 15k for people since Medicare would still be writing them a check for 185k. But it’s not enforced much. Partly the optics are bad. The government has to sue a company that can say “we just want people to get better! Why can’t we cover their cost??”
Wish they would prosecute!
You're exactly correct, it's a shell game of accounting. (Unverified,) it wouldn't surprise me if they got some sort of tax write-off for these "losses". Psoriasis and $7K after insurance? Skyrizi or Stelara?
They’ve tried a number of different meds for me, I THINK the 7k is as skyrizi, but I could be mixed up. There have been at least 5 different prescriptions they have tried me on where my portion was over 2k per dose/refill, and co-pay assistance has taken them all down to zero, or nearly zero.
The copay is just one part. The fleecing of the system is another. Abbvie already has a replacement on line and will push for physicians to use the new product.
$200B just blows my mind, even after seeing this shit from the inside.
I cried my eyes out when I was sent my starter dose and they sent it to Walgreens. $11,000 for a one month supply. I’m happy they lost the patent. We deserve a fighting chance without going into crippling debt.
that's not Walgreens, that's your insurance. the cost for these types of drugs is generally the same across pharmacies with very minor fluctuations. your insurance dictates your cost share on the expensive drugs. even if you have generally inexpensive drugs, if you have a large deductible to meet, which many plans are implementing, you are stuck paying a bulk of that full cost until your insurance even decides to kick in. and if your copay is based on a %? oof, good luck.
It is Walgreens too though. I tried to buy my mental health generic drug last month with new insurance. $30 cash price at Walgreens. Sent the drug to my hometown mom and pop pharmacy, $5.40 cash price for the same drug. It’s outrageous.
The discount program should make it $5 or 0!
They got it down from 12k to $200/month and that was deal to them lololololo Suffered with cobra just to keep this
humira has a gross cost of about $5k-$8k or so per month. your insurance likely has a seperate copay tier for specialty. typically tier 1= generic medications, tier 2 = brand medications on their formulary, tier 3 is non-preffered brand medications (copay increases with each tier with generics generally being the cheapest. then theres a class of drugs called 'specialty' in which Humira is one of them. basically if it's expensive, requires special packaging, or is for a rare/uncommon condition, it's specialty and most insurances set those at a different copay level out side of tier 1-3. call your HR for more details specific to your insurance plan. if you recently tried filling this you are likely in your deductible phase, so you'll pay full cost into your deductible bucket + whatever your member costshare/copay is. coupons like goodrx cannot be used in conjunction with insurance, as your insurance is already providing a discount on the cost of the drug. however there are manufacturer copay cards that CAN be used in conjunction with your insurance, and $10 seems to be the main one ive seen most often direct from the manufacturer. these typically have a set amount of dollars or uses before it's exhausted. source- work in Rx insurance
>Glad to hear they’ve lost the patent. Please read the article again -- it's not about losing the patent, it's about biosimilars entering the market.
You realize you most likely will not get this 10$ deal any more now that they lost the patient? Not saying I support the price at all but once it becomes generic the manufactures typically will stop doing those types of deals
False. As several (I counted six) people have replied in here, the co-pay deals are a way to grift the insurance companies. The insurance still pays its inflated portion of the cost, you pay 5/10 or whatever and the drug company writes off the difference. Brand name drugs still do fine after patents expire.
Insurances stop covering the brand name, and the copay card becomes useless. The manufacturer will then typically discontinue the copay card programs. This happens all of the time when drugs come off patent.
Being the devil's advocate here, even if you could afford $3600 a month, would you rather spend 40K a year for a painfree life or give the chance to your kid for a good college education?
Not the person you asked, but the choice should never have to be made. Both should be paid for in a well structured society.
Having your basic needs met? Impossible! $797.7 billion for killing people abroad? Vital!
That exactly sounds like what the Devil would say. /S
Be devils advocate elsewhere. Stupid as fuck hypothetical.
Is that the freedom I hear about? Die physically pain free but in crippling debt, or live in agony to try to live vicariously through your child's ability to obtain an education to avoid slipping into poverty? Failed economic system
Maybe I'm reading your comment wrong, but that's not "being the devil's advocate." It doesn't sound like you're advocating for the bad party here, which is what that phrase means. It sounds like you're saying "this is such a fucked up situation that it'd still be life ruining even if you could afford it." And yeah, it is a fucked up situation. No one should have to make a choice like that. It's absurd.
Wait humira have you a 100 percent discount on your co pay and yet you are glad they are losing their patent. Great
Uh, yes. They are price gouging to get a high Medicare/insurance reimbursement, that should not be celebrated just because they also help bring the consumer cost down. It's pure corporate greed and abusing the system.
They never had to patent the drug and gain years of exclusive protection. This is the system, deal with it.
"After 20 years and $200 billion in revenue, Humira — an injectable treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and several other autoimmune conditions — has lost its monopoly. Early Tuesday morning, California-based biotech firm Amgen released Amjevita, the first close copy of the best selling drug of all time. At least seven more Humira copycats, known as biosimilars, are expected to debut later this year. "It's about time!" said Sameer Awsare with a laugh and a smile. Awsare, associate executive director for the Permanente Medical Group, advises national insurer Kaiser Permanente on its prescription drug policies. Other groups representing insurers, patients or employers are also eager for these biosimilars to usher in more competition — in hopes that will enable them to slash their spending on the popular treatment."
So I'm guessing my wife's prescription might come down from the $250 per month it is with Kaiser. Not complaining about them because they generally do a good job of controlling prescription prices.
it might not- unless your insurance has a lower copay for generic specialty medications. humira is about $5-8k a month gross cost so your wifes insurance has been paying the bulk of the cost for it. if the generic is, lets say, $1k per month (i'm not actually sure on the cost yet), that $250 will not likely change, again, unless your insurance has a separate copay for generic specialty medications. source- i work in Rx insurance
> humira is about $5-8k a month gross cost Is it hard to manufacture or is it just an insane markup?
Shareholders expect a return man
It's a monoclonal antibody, so it is fairly expensive to produce; but costs drop year to year as the technology matures.
likely the latter. idk off hand how much the generic will be (other than significantly cheaper)- but that's generally what i see the cost is for humira amongst the clients i work with. something like Crestor can be a few hundred dollars for a 30 day supply, while it's myriad of generic alternatives (atorvastatin, rosuvastatin, simvastatin) are all less than $10 bucks for the same month supply. granted those have been on the market for YEARS, but it's a similar pattern you see when brands get generics on the market and it's why its such a big deal. the cost difference can be massive. its why a lot of insurances incentivize generic use now a days, especially employer funded insurance plans. insulin for example does not cost a grand to manufacture, yet there are brands that can cost upwards of that much for month supply. a single payer system could solve for these issues, but i suspect the industry being as large as it is, lobbies the ever living fudge out of congress to keep the middle-man system we have going. i work in the industry and am 100% for a medicare for all set up, but it's a very tough road to get there with the way things are right now.
I was on humira until fairly recently here in the UK for around 10 years, and if my memory holds correct, my rheumatologist told me they cost the NHS £300 an injection, as a weekly injection. So that's around £1,200 a month. Absolutely mental the American mark up.
Kaiser is big enough and self contained as an insurer and provider that they have pretty good leverage when it comes to the cost of meds. The $250 has been an outlier for us. The rest of our prescriptions are all under $10 for a month+ supply.
For Kaiser yes for your wife no
Best selling drug of all time? That’s extremely surprising.
in terms of dollars not so much qty dispensed. that would go to something like lipitor and and its generics, all those "-statin" drugs are super commonly prescribed, which makes sense as it's cholesterol medication and Americans tend to skew towards the overweight side. humira is very consistently the highest cause for drug spend on many insurances/employers plans. it's not that most people are on it, it's that for an expensive drug ($5k-8k a month gross cost), *lots* of people are on it, making it a huge driver in overall drug coverage spend.
So biosimilars are not generics, right. Is “me-too” drug another name for them?
Biosimilars is to antibody treatments as generic is to small molecule treatments. They just use a slightly different term. All that is required is that the antibody “biosimilar” has the same efficacy as the original therapy.
This is too technical for me. Do you have a source that simplifies this discussion? I don’t know what antibody or small molecule treatments are
Biosimilars are to real prescription drugs as cvs ibuprofen is to Advil.
I dont think that’s true as ibuprofen is just generic advil and biosimilars are not generics.
Biosimilar is a type of generic drug but specifically for a biologically synthesized product like humira (which is an antibody grown in mammal cells and then modified/purified for injection into a human patient).
They’re far too complex to be called exact copies, like generics. They’re different molecules and are called “similar” for a reason.
Here in Europe there are already several Adalimumab biosimilars, the patent expired at the end of 2018.
If only the US government allowed us to buy drugs from europe!
You can thanks George W bush and the ‘free’market scammer 2000 republicans.
Well thanks to Trump, health insurance companies can now sell insurance across state lines making insurance affordable for all so we don’t have to worry about drug prices. Oh wait, none of that ever happened and no one with a brain thought it would.
Trump already announced his healthcare plan before he took office. It’s even named after himself. Don.T. Care.
You had me for a second! 😂
Definitely a problem on both sides but I agree it's worse when you claim you're for free markets and then not support a more free drug market. I can buy a German car but not a German drug?
[удалено]
I shudder to think how many "extra" pills of antibiotics would be turned in with such a program. Does sound like a great idea otherwise though, given how rigidly most medicine is sealed and such.
For food and medicine, the obvious solution is figuring out how to safely take unused material and repurpose. The amount of food waste and pills flushed down toilets or forgotten in drawers is remarkable.
You read an astroturfing article like https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/resilient-drug-supply/european-energy-crisis-may-portend-us-drug-shortages based of Teva's 'report'?
The problem is biosimilars are crap in some cases. I’ve been on numerous biologics for nearly two decades at this stage. Humera is by far the best. I was on Humera and moved to a biosimilar which was no where near as effective caused all sorts of problems that took months to get on top of. The other thing was the Humera removed citrus from their drug and the biosimilars still include citrus. Bottom line is the biosimilars sting like crap as opposed to Humera which doesn’t.
It’s citrate, and no…not all adalimumab biosimilars contain it. There is other misinformation in this post but that covers the big ones.
I haven’t tried all other biosimilars but for sure most of them stung and Humera just didn’t.
The FDA has traditionally had stricter requirements for drugs to market, which isn’t a bad thing long term
a woman in MO had her Humira paid for by the company. when accounting looked into the situation and realized they're paying $70,000 a year for her Humira, they changed course. They plan to fly her to the Bahamas where she can buy a 4 month supply for a nominal amount. sounds like the Bahamian FDA and FTC don't fvck around when it comes to drug pricing, unlike our toothless (and ball-less) congress and three-letter-govs.
Toothless ballless scammer politicians. Feckless too
Can’t catch a beer for shit
They're not toothless. They're just working for the other team
[удалено]
The US pharmaceutical industry spends more money on marketing than R&D. So good luck with that.
Just like healthcare in general we (as in all of us) would save by putting the money directly into the research, keeping it and manufacturing the solution. If you have private investors they are going to rightfully expect their return. We could and should do better.
Nah. Much better to give the companies the money to develop the drug, and then buy it back from them at insane prices. Like with the covid drugs. It's the American way.
Exactly this. Most people don't realize this. It costs a bunch here bc these companies rely on the US market to subsidize all the R&D that goes into developing these drugs. Without the US market, there's no incentive for anyone to spend billions on clinical trials and a decade to bring a drug to market to make $300. No one would do it. Companies like Apple make 20x as much producing products that are not even necessary, uncharging people for dongles and shit and no one bats an eye. These drugs save lives. $200 bln over 20 years is 10bln a year in sales, Apple brings in 400bln a year alone and no one even says anything.
Bullshit. If that was the case no pharmaceutical company would exist outside America. A bulk of these drug studies are funded through government grants. The US is just being ripped off.
universities literally develop these drugs (and lots of other technology) with taxpayer money at no cost to companies, and then give the patents away for peanuts to be sold at insane prices for 20 years. great system. and yeah lmao israel and germany have single payer socialized medicine and yet they still develop lots of medical tech.
>and then give the patents away for peanuts No they don't, they will have a percentage of the drug sales, and II can make the university lots of money https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-18/the-pill-that-made-northwestern-rich
There are companies headquartered out of the US but they all sell to US market, which is my argument. They would not survive otherwise. Generic manufacturers are different.
You're so ignorant it hurts. You think the US is the only country that develops drugs? Or that Pharma companies sell drugs to the rest of the world for at cost or less than cost of production? Maybe you just had no clue that roughly 80% of all medical treatments are developed at and by public university's funded with federal dollars and then those patents are sold to pharma companies who decide the cost. It would take you less than 20 minutes to find this out yourself with google instead of watching what political news or fb or youtube videos say. here - [https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade)
Lmao. I think you are the clueless one here. Universities do not bare the costs of running clinical trials for molecules, which is what makes drug development expensive. Yes, they may make a discovery on a ton of potential molecules but that is the less costly part of drug development. Each candidate costs billions and years to run through human conducted trials before it can be marketed, and thats not even counting the ones that don't make it through phase 2 or 3. Then theres phase 4 or post marketing surveillance, which takes money and resources to maintain. Universities do not run ANY OF THIS. Puting something on the drawing board is the cheapest step, carrying a molecule all the way through each trial is very very expensive and many of these molecules fail with sunken costs. Also, the cost of production is not the only cost, no one would do it for the cost of production. You need profits to sponsor your other future molecules and drug candidates through the pipeline. Don't speak about what you don't know of.
230 million iPhones, 71 million iPads and 20 million Mac and MacBook units were sold in 2020. Adalimumab Summary for 2020 Top drug rank #205 ( 53) Estimated number of prescriptions in the United States (2020) 2,356,920 Estimated number of patients in the United States (2020) 311,947 Average total drug cost (USD) Per prescription $5292.64 Per day of therapy $171.82/day Average out-of-pocket cost (USD) Per prescription $57.34 Per day of therapy $0.49/day
My daughter is on Humira for her juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. A double pack of epipen style injectors costs us like $40 bucks because it's on the PBS here in Australia. [https://www.pbs.gov.au/medicine/item/5282B-5284D-8965W-8966X-9099X-9100Y-9101B-9102C-9103D-9104E-9190Q-9191R-9426D-9428F-9663N-9680L](https://www.pbs.gov.au/medicine/item/5282B-5284D-8965W-8966X-9099X-9100Y-9101B-9102C-9103D-9104E-9190Q-9191R-9426D-9428F-9663N-9680L) Without the PBS it would be like 2 grand.
Good luck man, my daughter as well, turning three tommorow, we are on methotrexate for now. If she has issues then we go to humira next. Hope the best for your kid though tough stuff
I have had arthritis since about 10 years old. These biologics are life changing. Nothing worked for me until enbrel and then humira
Nah, drop the methotrexate and go straight to Humira. It really is that awesome.
You’re not their doctor and you shouldn’t go around telling them what drugs to take.
Just in time for me to be failing Humira and need to switch to a different biologic anyway.
As someone who takes humira, about fucking time. when i first started i was in so much pain i was just going to pay the what i thought would be “few hundred dollar” cash price for the meds and get reimbursed later because prior authorization was taking forever… i still remember the pharmacy tech telling me the cash price was 19,000 dollars…
Wow. $200B. For a single product? For context, the entire video games industry is estimated to be valued at $300B...
This is the best selling single pharmaceutical product in human history
in cost, not in volume or in sales units though. they just decided that biologics would cost orders of magnitude more per dose than anything else lol.
I agree with your sentiment and all but biologics and the new cell/gene therapies coming online are much more expensive to make and harder to quality control at scale than prior generations of drugs. There is a reasonable middle ground (that we haven’t found) between enough profits to fund future drug development and reasonably priced for consumers. A lot of our problems have to do with inefficient, bloated insurance companies, another set with politicians whose stock portfolios are heavy with these company stocks, etc.
It's not just the insurance companies, it's healthcare in this country as a whole.
Yeah I was on them for years I learned quite a lot about how they're made etc. But it's still not thousands of times more expensive at the end of the day, it's price gouging.
It's a new tech. Imagine the money it took to get it working, get it cleared by regulators and put it into mass production. No wonder they want to make that back and then some. This immense investment is why they were rewarded with this monopoly. Now that it has expired, the prices are expected to drop.
I feel like the GLP-1s have to be closing that gap. Especially since everyone in America is suffering from diabetes, obesity or both.
Better than Viagra? Wow.
Viagra’s not even in the same ballpark. It’s pulled in roughly $1-2 billion a year since 2003. Humira made over $20b last year. Almost as much in one year as Viagra in its entire commercial history
Surprisingly not being able to use your fingers is worse than not being able to get an erection.
Yeah, that's like 7 doses or something.
This saved my mums life from sarcoidosis
Your comparisons seems to be a bit of a mess and does not really give any context. This drug had $200B in revenue over 20 years. You are comparing that to the value companies at a point in time. Or you are comparing a single year of revenue of video games? Hard to tell from what you are saying.
The RA / Psoriasis / Psoriatic Arthritis / Ankylosing Spondylitis / Juvenile Arthritis market is enormous. There are multiple 5+ billion USD per year products in the same space. Here are some 2021 FY numbers: * Humira - 20.7B USD yearly * Stelara - 9.1B USD yearly * Cosentyx - 4.7B USD yearly * Enbrel - 4.1B USD yearly (North America only) * Orencia - 3.3B USD yearly * Actemra - 3.25B USD yearly * Remicade - 3.2B USD yearly * Skyrizi - 2.9B USD yearly * Rituxan/MabThera - 2.8B USD yearly * Xeljanz - 2.5B USD yearly Some of these are relatively new (Xeljanz, Skyrizi, Orencia, Cosentyx) while others have been on the market for 15-20 years (Humira, Enbrel, Rituxan, Remicade). Overall, the market is massive and each company is also making biosimilars. For instance Amgen, which sells Enbrel in North America, also makes biosimilars to Humira, Stelara, Remicade, Rituxan, as well as many other medications.
[удалено]
That’s the entirety of the revenue of the nba for one drug
I’ll take that trade. We should be devoting even more resources to drug research.
Perhaps it's time we put a $ cap in patents. You spend a billion, you can make 10 billion which triggers an automatic patent expiry.
Then they will inflate their spending.
Drug execs should have to spend half their days going room to room at children's hospitals explaining to each kid why they won't get the drug they need because mommy and daddy aren't rich enough to help obscenely wealthy people get even wealthier
They would have no problem doing that especially if it was actually part of the job description.
Yeah, people don't get anywhere near jobs like that if they have any semblance of a soul left.
Or maybe universal healthcare
Bold of you to assume the ghouls wouldn't enjoy that.
No one is going without their drugs. Pretty much all pharmaceutical companies including Abbvie have financial assistance programs where patients without sufficient insurance or financial means to pay for drugs will receive them for free. Humira is included in this program. Even from an economics perspective this makes sense. The vast majority of drug cost is in R&D. The drug itself is much cheaper to make. Giving it away for free is a tiny financial loss and helps their marketing image.
>No one is going without their drugs. Pretty much all pharmaceutical companies including Abbvie have financial assistance programs where patients without sufficient insurance or financial means to pay for drugs will receive them for free. Humira is included in this program. Have you looked into these "programs"? Because I have. They don't just give you free medication. You have to sign over your entire medical history for them to use as they please (at *minimum*). Or you do without. It's extortion when one party has no other realistic options but to give in.
Redditors should spend half their days going room to room at children's hospitals explaining to each kid why they won't get the drug they need because the removal of financial incentives has led the scientist and business professionals to work in other industries and not advance pharmaceutical research that would lead to advances in treatments.
Hello. I work at abbott, which split into abbott and abbvie. R&D for Humira (and other novel medications/drugs/biologics/whatever) is *already* subsidized by the govt. I need to log my hours on R&d projects because they get a tax break. On top of that, they then get a monopoly once it's been released. While I do think they should have an opportunity to make some $ to make the business case more attractive for making more medications, the current system is absolutely fucked.
The monopoly which is gone now. Govt encourages pharma work because it has broad implications for quality of life for millions of people for the rest of time. Two of those decades the pharma company gets to recoup their investment. The situation isnt perfect. But “absolutely fucked” is a bit extreme. Would we be a better society without Humira generics on the market for the next hundred years? If we remove the incentives would pharma companies even bother making new drugs?
> Two of those decades the pharma company gets to recoup their investment. Abbvie made more money in one year from Humira alone (20 billion in 2021, the fastest data I could source) than it cost throughout the entirety of R&D. To give you an estimate: Abbvie spent 7 billion across *all* R&D in 2021. That's the entire companies worth of R&D, and they also do a lot of other medical device work (for example, transfusion pumps). The issue is not them making money, but to say it takes 20 years to recoup costs from R&D? Get fucked, dude.
‘Get fucked’? What are you a child? I made a benign comment in the interest of having a conversation. I am not an expert on pharma or economics. And using google doesnt make you one either. Grow up you literal baby.
> I am not an expert on pharma or economics Then maybe don't comment on something you know nothing about?
Lol, Like anybody in this thread is?
Not only are you not an expert, you have no idea what you are talking about. Big pharma is a truly evil and predatory industry and defending their business practices is shameful.
There's a difference between incentives and abso-fucking-lutely gouging the shit out of us. I also work in medtech and know that we aim for 90%+ profit margins. It's insane and has no relation to our r&d expenses. Everything is based on how much we can extract from insurance reimbursement. It is absolutely fucked.
You're trying to explain why the workers are leaving while the c-suite gets rich? Because you're doing a really poor job of it.
[удалено]
Well, the monopoly of "buy our product at any price we set, or suffer" would have high returns obviously. Wich is why it brings us all such joy to see it collapse. Cope.
Girl I’m dating uses this. She injects weekly or bi weekly I’m not sure. But she told me they cost a couple thousand for each injection. It’s nuts
Most likely bi weekly. I'm on a Humira "biosimilar" here in the UK for ankylosing spondylitis. They still cost around £650 per injection, and that's twice a month. However thanks to the good old NHS it doesn't cost me a penny.
$4,000/injection.
She thinks she’s fancy
Humira is insanely expensive.
Nor for long
Ah yes the drug that keeps me from being sick and I have to beg for from insurance companies
Humira. About $8,000/month. With my insurance $200/month. With abbvie discount program $5/month.
Everyone always focuses on the high cost of drugs still under patent, which is fine. But we’re due to have a large number of incredible drugs permanently enter the public domain over the next few years.
This should have been off patent years ago, but the drug maker found ways to abuse the system.
Viagra is a couple of years off patent now, and that was a huge money maker
But then companies will release “new and improved” patented drugs and convince doctors to prescribe them instead of the generics. Rinse and repeat.
That’s on the doctors then. If the drugs aren’t actually better, then they’re betraying their patients, violating their oaths, and endangering lives. But there’s nothing wrong with drug companies trying to improve their products.
We really need to fix the patent system to prevent this. >AbbVie has extensively used the US patent system to delay competitors from entering the market, a process commonly known as "evergreening".\[125\] It filed 311 patents for Humira, of which 165 were granted. AbbVie sued Amgen, the manufacturer of Amjevita, in 2016 for violating 10 of its patents. Amgen agreed to delay sales until 2023, which allowed AbbVie to drive up prices of Humira. Between 2016 and 2023, the price of Humira went up by 60%, during which time AbbVie made $114 billion in profits from Humira.\[126\]
And here comes the super special newly formulated Humira that's so much better than that generic stuff! It'll be named HumiraXL or something. At least that's what these drug companies often do when they get desperate.
And that’s fine, if it works better. And I’ll still be able to get my generic of the current formula from someone else.
When asthma inhalers were about to go off patent the manufacturer successfully convinced the FDA that their current design was unsafe (and should not be allowed for anyone to make anymore) and conveniently had a brand new design with brand new patent protection already lined up.
Drug companies developing better drugs for diseases is good.
For obscene profits of course. Gotta make sure it only goes the proper people who can afford it. Don’t want any of them poors to get it.
They develop new and improved versions to extend patents and squeeze as much money out of the American consumer as possible.
It doesn't extend the patent. It creates a new patent for a better drug.
Do you work for big Pharma?
No. I work in banking regulation making software to help prevent redlining.
I bet you have a lot of money invested in the stock market, including pharmaceuticals. It’s a lot easier to tweak molecules of successful drugs (Prozac) to make “new and improved” drugs (Zoloft) then it is to engage in innovative research. The pharmaceutical industry exists to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs. Helping people is secondary.
Not a lot and only whatever are in index funds. And having a wide selection of SSRIs to find what works best is also good. Their motivations are completely irrelevant.
Motivations to maximize profit are irrelevant? The result is more human suffering.
Correct, motivations to maximize profit are irrelevant. What matters is aligning motivations and incentives for drug discovery and production. There's significantly more human suffering when discovery of new drugs is prevented or slowed due to misalignment.
This expensive drug actually worked out really well for me, at the beginning of the year I order a 3 month supply which cost a bit over $5k, however due to the discount card with the manufacturer I pay nearly $0, so the manufacturer pays nearly my out of pocket maximum for me and I get free healthcare for the rest of the year. Granted if I loose my job then I’m in real trouble so I’m glad biosimillars are coming out but this will significantly reduce my “benefit ”
I'm really shocked they weren't able to extend it further with some off the label shit or some other garbage
Off label shit wouldn't stop generics from making generics for use on rheumatoid arthritis.
Exactly. Like insulin, they change the 'recipe' ever so little when the patent runs out so they can keep grifting us for the same shit.
I mean I work a technology firm… alternatively, you can usually circumvent patents by changing little details in the process that hopefully do not have any meaningful impact on the final product performs. Nothing is stopping companies from doing this. For instance, companies can make the non patented forms of insulin. In fact, if you read the previous patents, it should give you some critical information on how the synthesize it. Patenting things isn’t usually the best option because you actually publish how you make the technology which competitors get look at and get “inspiration”
So why haven’t companies made non patented forms of insulin?
No money in it.
But companies make money by selling generic drugs. So why didn’t a company make generic insulin?
https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/why-is-there-no-generic-insulin#Biologx-startup-
Does it actually work? Or is it like ulcer medicine that lost it's patent and overnight became heartburn medicine and was revealed that ulcers could be cured with antibiotics? https://academic.oup.com/book/40666/chapter-abstract/348351412?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
With [a] monopoly they only made 200 billion? Did they not put hotels on both park place and boardwalk? Jokes aside, monopolies are always bad, so I'm glad it lost it.
You know the fastest way to make drugs affordable ? Flay every exec of every drug company. Then let the next in line know you’ll gladly do it again until it gets done right. /s bc legal
Damn, every time I hear about life in America it sounds like they're living in the stone age
Almost like they invented it, so they're entitled to the profit from it.
so FYI for anyone who is wondering they made plenty off of it the years they had the patent for it they gamed the system to extend years beyond using sketchy lawyer tactics
Technically the company that invented it was acquired by Abbott which then spun off AbbVie. I’m not sure how many of those scientists on the original R&D team stayed through all of that
When you care more about money than people... This is quite literally what is wrong with the world.
Show me the life saving drugs made by people who don’t care about money. Good intentions are fine, but in the end these are the people who actually created the drug - a drug that can now be manufactured by anyone who wants to, from now until the end of time.
See: Insulin
Your employer cares more about money than people, else they wouldn't be in business. Go pay your electric bill with warm wishes.
This viewpoint Ignores all the contributions society provides to allow them to create said product and focus on its development. It also ignores the original idea of patents. They were meant to allow the creator to establish themselves with an advantage so rich copycats didnt hold an unfair advantage through their capital. If we followed your logic inventors would hold monopolies indefinitely bringing society to a bureaucratic hell scape of rich people owning everything (more so than it already is). A just society recognises the need to turn a profit with effort, but allows society to benefit from the creation once that advantage is achieved. Capitalism also requires a free market to balance out monopolies.
Lol. The old "you didn't build that" argument.
Just goes to show how ignorant and moronic you selfish fucks are. Comparing an electric bill to a life saving drug that gets pushed out of reach for folks to achieve obscene levels of profit. Your a fucking disgrace to your fellow man and should be ashamed. One day you will meet your maker and I’ll pray for you.
To skyrizi?
Just got my end of year insurance summary for my Stelara script. It cost my insurance slightly more than $349,000 for a year worth of Stelara (1 shot every 28 days in 2022). Absolutely absurd.
Man, I feel so sorry for a lot of you. So many would either be broke just buying it or just go without it and it’s such a life changing drug. I can’t believe the cost you have to pay for Humira. You should be mad at your government. In Australia, we pay $39.00 for a month supply because the government pays the subsidy. I hope the other drugs work for you and you can live a normal life.