- Average wait to see a new doctor is 31 days.
- Poll: 57 percent of voters in 16 GOP-held battleground districts said they were more likely to choose a congressional candidate who voted to preserve the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
- India has become the world’s pharmacy. HIV drugs sell for a dollar a day.
- Roughly 40% of the US population lives in an area where the water is not fluoridated.
- 6% of US students are being homeschooled.
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
When Drug Patents Become an Impenetrable Thicket that Stifles Innovation
While patents are designed to reward innovation, patents can also stifle innovation. Take drugmakers for example. It is expensive for drugmakers to innovate. Each new product as to go through Phase 0, 1, 2 and 3 testing. With each new product, drug companies must apply for a new drug application, called an NDA.
Tuesday Links
- Health insurance companies supporting politicians who hate health insurance companies.
- Turns out, the US probably doesn’t have worse maternal mortality rates than other developed countries.
- How Medicaid drug pricing works – with and without Trump.
- AI’s favorite animal: the octopus.
- Dershowitz: “Canada is now our enemy.”
- Before 1962, developing a drug took about two years. Now it takes 12 to 14 years. Since 1975 real development costs have risen about 7.5% a year, roughly doubling every decade. Today, we estimate that bringing one successful drug to market costs about $9 billion on average. (This includes the cost of failed drugs and the time value of money.)
Some Employers Find Legal Loopholes to Import Cheap Drugs
It is technically against federal law to import drugs into the United States except those authorized by the manufacturer. This is how U.S. drugmakers can charge much higher prices domestically. The ban on drug reimportation allows drug manufacturers to price discriminate, charging different prices in different markets. This only works if you can prevent arbitrage, which is preventing someone bypassing the expensive products by importing cheaper ones.