dagblog - Comments for "The power and peril of the Intensive Care Unit"

PolitiFact - Rick Scott

artappraiser — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 22:43:47 +0000

In reply to The power and peril of the Intensive Care Unit

PolitiFact - Rick Scott 'oversaw the largest Medicare fraud' in U.S. history, Florida Democratic Party says https://t.co/LaoffCDeZA
— OkeyMor Taking a stand for justice with receipts (@OkeyMor57) February 4, 2023

How a Drug Company Made $114

artappraiser — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 22:02:10 +0000

In reply to I can tell without even

How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System

AbbVie for years delayed competition for its blockbuster drug Humira, at the expense of patients and taxpayers. The monopoly is about to end.

By Rebecca Robbins @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 28, 2023

In 2016, a blockbuster drug called Humira was poised to become a lot less valuable.

The key patent on the best-selling anti-inflammatory medication, used to treat conditions like arthritis, was expiring at the end of the year. Regulators had blessed a rival version of the drug, and more copycats were close behind. The onset of competition seemed likely to push down the medication’s $50,000-a-year list price.

Instead, the opposite happened.

Through its savvy but legal exploitation of the U.S. patent system, Humira’s manufacturer, AbbVie, blocked competitors from entering the market. For the next six years, the drug’s price kept rising. Today, Humira is the most lucrative franchise in pharmaceutical history.

Next week, the curtain is expected to come down on a monopoly that has generated $114 billion in revenue for AbbVie just since the end of 2016. The knockoff drug that regulators authorized more than six years ago, Amgen’s Amjevita, will come to market in the United States, and as many as nine more Humira competitors will follow this year from pharmaceutical giants including Pfizer. Prices are likely to tumble.

The reason that it has taken so long to get to this point is a case study in how drug companies artificially prop up prices on their best-selling drugs.

AbbVie orchestrated the delay by building a formidable wall of intellectual property protection and suing would-be competitors before settling with them to delay their product launches until this year.

The strategy has been a gold mine for AbbVie, at the expense of patients and taxpayers.[....]

I can tell without even

artappraiser — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 21:40:24 +0000

In reply to “Other doctors echoed what

I can tell without even checking further that many are denying this prescription, saying "you have to try Ibuprofen first for a year, then we'll revisit this" (and with proof and receipts please)

I have a PhD to finish this month so can't write this up properly rn, but stopping by #Humira twitter to say current discussions abt future biosimilar prices are off by an order of magnitude.

We shouldn't aim for $3k, $300, or even $30/dose.

~$3 wd include ample profit / capex https://t.co/4BRnO8rdJM
— Melissa Barber \ MelissaBarber@mstdn.social (@mellabarb) January 31, 2023

It all depends on whether the new drug manufacturer has inked a deal with the insurers or not - if they have, the insurers don't actually pay anything near those prices, because they are delivering a huge market. The makers of new *revolutionary* drugs will often hold tight on doing that for a while, milk high profit from the patients with money and the few insurers who will not question costs. They will eventually lower the price - for insurers, but not for uninsured patients - just not now.Not if they have something new that works better than previous remedies

“Other doctors echoed what

artappraiser — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 20:13:01 +0000

In reply to The power and peril of the Intensive Care Unit

“Other doctors echoed what our own had told us: requests typically got denied right off the bat, but were often approved after an appeal — or two.”

This story is just one more reminder that it’s time to #FixPriorAuth: https://t.co/D1kiIbk92k
— Physicians Grassroots Network (@PhysGrassroots) January 31, 2023

Actually if's waaaaay past time. Personally several of my doctors over the past 5 years are so sick and tired of playing this shell game with insurers about what they prescribe for their patients that they just refuse to do it anymore! The patient is on his/her own to either fight the insurer or pay out of pocket for what the doctor wants them to take. This "Physicians Grass Roots Network" is still fighting, but many individual doctors have just given up and let the patient fight.

Also I am seeing a more recent complicaton with the big chain pharmacies like CVS: if the insurer says they will not cover it without a lengthy "prior authorization" game, they just don't even tell the patient about it and just don't fill it!!! Where the patient doesn't even get the choice to pay for the medicine that the doctor wanted them to use!!! They'll notify the doctor but not the patient. And they don't answer the fucking phone (because there aren't enough pharmacists on staff) when the doctor calls back. So everybody gives up and nobody tells the patient. Since giants like CVS own a lot of the prescription insurers, or at least have major contracts with them and with drug companies, I can't help but be suspicious about this situation! The result: they profit, but patients don't get the individualized treatment that their doctor thought might really help them, they get 'protocol' and get treated with cookie cutter medicine as if they are are robots.