Jeeeezus, I'm sick to death of reading and hearing about China.

[dogtag]

I really don't give a Rat's arse where this damn virus came from.
It will pass so what the hell is the point of everyone pointing
accusing fingers at China. Does China care ? Doubtful. Will they
pay reparations ? Will I become King of England ? the answer to
both is a resounding No. The only thing that will effect them is
the possibility of losing manufacturing to US and Japan, plus
others. But you'll hear the screams when patients see the price of
the drugs when made here that previously were made in China.

[Roadkingtrax]

What's with your formatting? European keyboard or something?

[togor]

One more story for you DT...

UK got fleeced for about $20M in Chinese antibody tests that don't work.

How does one say "ouch!" in British?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/w...y-test-uk.html

[lyman]

One more story for you DT...

UK got fleeced for about $20M in Chinese antibody tests that don't work.

How does one say "ouch!" in British?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/w...y-test-uk.html

um ,

ouch,,,

- - - Updated - - -

What's with your formatting? European keyboard or something?

I was thinking maybe his phone,
it always seems like that to me

[Mark in Ottawa]

I was actually astounded when I read that 90% of the antibiotics sold in the USA are manufactured in China.

Pharmaceuticals are a very odd product from a cost point of view. Because of the very high value to weight ratio, they can be manufactured anywhere. Basically, you can fill a shoebox with pills and ship it anywhere in the world for a few dollars, even if the product in that box will sell for $100,000. In practice, of course, they usually put them in proper packaging rather than shoeboxes but it illustrates the point.

For that reason, drug companies will typically centralize production where it is cheapest due to labour and taxes. Production, however, is not the highest cost element. A lot of the costs are for research and marketing. I am not aware of current costs but about 25 years ago, I helped set up a Canadian Government Agency dedicated to keeping drug costs down and at that time, the cost to bring a drug to market was about $100m. Turns out that of every 10 drugs that they worked on, only one made a lot of money and two did OK. The rest were losers that had to be cross subsidized by the one winner.

Typically this research was being done in the drug company's home country and not where the drug was manufactured. What I'm getting at here is that I am reasonably sure that the added cost of manufacturing these drugs in the USA instead of China would not be that great.

I'm not in a position to intelligently discuss the very high price of drugs in the USA but I will note that drug prices in Canada for identical medication are normally much cheaper, to the point that we now have a degree of "drug tourism" from the USA. From what I have read, insulin in Canada sells for about 25% of the cost in the USA.

[rayg]

For years I knew people that ordered their drug from Canada via an online site.
and always for a lot less then purchased in the US at drug stores...

[Vern Humphrey]

I'm not in a position to intelligently discuss the very high price of drugs in the USA but I will note that drug prices in Canada for identical medication are normally much cheaper, to the point that we now have a degree of "drug tourism" from the USA. From what I have read, insulin in Canada sells for about 25% of the cost in the USA.

That's because you have price controls. The situation your describe (10 drugs with only one winner amongst them) makes it impossible to pro-rate development costs, so drug companies must go by the bottom line -- set prices so you make a profit.

Drugs made in Canada do not include development costs -- that whole cost is consequently thrown on the American consumer. One result is that nowadays the overwhelming majority of R&D is done in the US since developers in other countries cannot recoup their costs.

[Sandpebble]

For many years both my Father and my wife used the same brand of blood pressure medicine .

Same brand ...same milligram. Wife brings home many months supply from Colombia every year of a product made here in the USA .

She purchases it at a fraction of what my Father pays here in the USA for the same product .... what's the deal ?

Not saying I'm a fan but Bernie Sanders said one thing I had to agree with ... and that was...

"We're willing to purchase and consume fish and other food products from China..... yet we can't purchase cheaper medications from out neighbor Canada"

[oscars]

The book “800 million dollar pill” gives a good synopsis as to the cost of medicine in the US. The vast majority of the development of new drugs is carried out by public sector labs. In the main, original research on cholesterol lowering medications was undertaken by the public sector and still is the basis for all commercial preparations. A fair amount of big pharma work consists of “me too” drugs of some off label uses that are attempts at extending payment life.

[togor]

Drugs made in Canada do not include development costs -- that whole cost is consequently thrown on the American TAXPAYER. One result is that nowadays the overwhelming majority of R&D is done in the US since developers in other countries cannot recoup their costs.

FIFY