The CF Foundation didn’t just “chip in for some drug trials”. They kicked in over a quarter of a billion dollars to flat out develop Orkambi, AND they pay for clinical trials. The CF Foundation did this on the condition Vertex would not price gouge. So what is Vertex doing? Turned around and price gouged. Of course they justify this with “we give some away” thing that all companies have done, so they can justify the immense damage they’re doing to the overall health care system in this country while making themselves obscenely rich. Do they really need to have 70-95% profit quarter over quarter?
Their generalized financial pages are frustrating because they list their total R&D costs but conveniently leave out all the money they get from grants because it would impact how people interpret their “research to revenue” amounts.
They may have kicked in $250 million, but I suspect it cost around 4 times as much.
VRTX had 31% net profit margin last quarter. Previous reported quarter was 16%.
For those two quarters, Merck had 26% and 18% net profit margin. Pfizer had 30% and 31%.
For comparison, Microsoft was 28% and 30% respectively. Intel was 25% and 33%. Nvidia was 26% and 35%.
If so, then they both are dishonest.
By the way, can you link a drug company who is now quoting the $2.6 billion figure? It has been attributed to their trade group PhRMA, but their own website does not make that claim.
But they don’t claim it. Perhaps they once did, but once the flaws of the study became apparent they stopped citing it. That is the opposite of dishonesty.
Not at all. I asked for a current cite for their views, because their patient-oriented propaganda site (https://www.letstalkaboutcost.org/) doesn’t seem to mention that number. And after a few tries you found one on the main site. Which means, as I suggested from the very start, that they are both dishonest.
@jpinard. In our drug development system you’d have to look at profits over a long period of time. You want some quarters with gangbuster profits b/c that’s how the system works.
This is an extremely complicated issue with both sides conflating/hiding numbers. I think the current system works extremely well with a few exceptions: the problem of collusion with generics to delay competition; ever greening; orphan diseases/antiobiotics may be underfunded.
One other calculation to consider on price of drugs to market is that you can’t look at just the drugs that make it to market. You need to factor in drugs that fail, especially in clinical trials and a billion dollar investment goes to 0.
You did not. You claimed, falsely, that they had abandoned that view, and dismissed multiple pieces of evidence that showed you were wrong by quibbling about the publication dates on the evidence. There is not one shred of evidence that the drug industry has abandoned the estimate, and real evidence that they have not, and you claimed, falsely and repeatedly, that they had and that the article was lying to attribute the estimate to them.
This is what bothers me. I’ve had to defer going on Orkambi for years even though it would help me, because once I’m on it, I will only have a few years of insurance thanks to its exorbitant price and it’s effect on my insurance.
So I have to weigh options, what is more expensive. Better overall health but spending a quarter of a million dollars a year on a single prescription? Or the ability to be hospitalized as needed plus get the rest of my meds as normal? Worse overall health, hospital stays, and my current med regime is way, way cheaper right now.
Wealthy people are not taxed enough. They don’t need to make even more money than they already do. Betsy DeVos does not need a bloody yacht in every state. We tax at a fair rate and drive that straight into drug research instead of going the profit route and drugs won’t cost insane amounts, health insurance is more affordable, deficit growth slows etc. it’s better for the country in a thousand ways.
