I'm sorry how much?!

saracelica

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saracelica
I'm not as frugal as @RJM62 but c'mon. Went to my dermatologist for my annual skin test. Very fair skin. No weird moles... yeah. She doesn't like my roseca (sp?) I said I can't afford what you wanted me to get last year ($84 with insurance for some face cream)

This year she says I'll give you some samples to try and see what you think. Ok.

So a tablet and then some cream (aczone) yeah it's clearing up. Looked on goodrx.com to see a ballpark price for it. $600 for the cream and $300 for thirty day supply of tablets.

Yeah my face isn't worth $1000. Maybe I'll be able to get samples for a year.
 
Lol. That’s nothing. I have a patient that was placed on a new prostate cancer med. 12K a month. Nobody actually pays that but insurance nonchalantly called him about it.
 
At least your getting some free samples.
 
I'm not as frugal as @RJM62 but c'mon. Went to my dermatologist for my annual skin test. Very fair skin. No weird moles... yeah. She doesn't like my roseca (sp?) I said I can't afford what you wanted me to get last year ($84 with insurance for some face cream)

This year she says I'll give you some samples to try and see what you think. Ok.

So a tablet and then some cream (aczone) yeah it's clearing up. Looked on goodrx.com to see a ballpark price for it. $600 for the cream and $300 for thirty day supply of tablets.

Yeah my face isn't worth $1000. Maybe I'll be able to get samples for a year.
My dermatologist recommended a urea based cream. $750 through my insurance company! Yeah, Urea (urine extract).
 
I'm not as frugal as @RJM62 but c'mon. Went to my dermatologist for my annual skin test. Very fair skin. No weird moles... yeah. She doesn't like my roseca (sp?) I said I can't afford what you wanted me to get last year ($84 with insurance for some face cream)

This year she says I'll give you some samples to try and see what you think. Ok.

So a tablet and then some cream (aczone) yeah it's clearing up. Looked on goodrx.com to see a ballpark price for it. $600 for the cream and $300 for thirty day supply of tablets.

Yeah my face isn't worth $1000. Maybe I'll be able to get samples for a year.

Who makes those drugs? I'm looking for some investment opportunities
 
My wife gets horrible ingrown toenails and her podiatrist wrote a sciprt for a salicylic acid cream or something. Supposed to it put on her toes to soften skin around her nails and make it easier to deal with them, I guess.

Insurance would not cover it, about $300 is what the pharmacy told me. Go look on the shelf, lots of salicylic acid creams and face washes for under $10 otc.
 
Who makes those drugs? I'm looking for some investment opportunities
They're all getting to be like that now. And I'm starting to understand why.

I've been working with a company that's developing some new technology around pharma and had the chance to interview some folks that are developing new drugs (and repurposing old orphan drugs). Most of the new drug development is done by start-up/entrepreneurial companies who are not funded by the big guys (keeps potential losses and research costs off their books). The funding comes from government grants and the VC world (or universities). It takes 4-5 years, maybe longer, to get through FDA approval, and the cost for the whole process is north of $100 million. Per drug. Once proven and approved, the big guys buy out the small companies (one recently got bought out by a big company for something north of $1 billion), so the original investors get their ROI. To make sure there's plenty of profit for the big companies, the prices are set high.

The big companies now own the patents and IP - they WILL invest research money for different uses for the drug since it's already been proven for something (e.g. reduced financial risk).

Thinking about that, let's say there are 100,000 people that need a given drug. To just cover the acquisition cost of the small company, the big pharma company will need to charge at least $10,000 for the course of treatment. Add in profit, marketing cost, distribution, etc. and it's easy to see how it can cost $20,000-$30,000 for a course of treatment with said drug. Patients, then, will look to insurance companies - who will negotiate prices and fight about paying for it - and then there are PBMs in the middle somewhere.

(And don't think for a moment that Medicare-for-all will fix that).

Welcome to free enterprise!
 
They're all getting to be like that now. And I'm starting to understand why.

I've been working with a company that's developing some new technology around pharma and had the chance to interview some folks that are developing new drugs (and repurposing old orphan drugs). Most of the new drug development is done by start-up/entrepreneurial companies who are not funded by the big guys (keeps potential losses and research costs off their books). The funding comes from government grants and the VC world (or universities). It takes 4-5 years, maybe longer, to get through FDA approval, and the cost for the whole process is north of $100 million. Per drug. Once proven and approved, the big guys buy out the small companies (one recently got bought out by a big company for something north of $1 billion), so the original investors get their ROI. To make sure there's plenty of profit for the big companies, the prices are set high.

The big companies now own the patents and IP - they WILL invest research money for different uses for the drug since it's already been proven for something (e.g. reduced financial risk).

Thinking about that, let's say there are 100,000 people that need a given drug. To just cover the acquisition cost of the small company, the big pharma company will need to charge at least $10,000 for the course of treatment. Add in profit, marketing cost, distribution, etc. and it's easy to see how it can cost $20,000-$30,000 for a course of treatment with said drug. Patients, then, will look to insurance companies - who will negotiate prices and fight about paying for it - and then there are PBMs in the middle somewhere.

(And don't think for a moment that Medicare-for-all will fix that).

Welcome to free enterprise!
That’s an accurate description of how that world operates! Don’t forget to add on the financial padding for the lawyers to take a couple cracks at them
 
My dermatologist recommended a urea based cream. $750 through my insurance company! Yeah, Urea (urine extract).

I’d figure out how to extract my own. Seriously, ever seen an astronaut come back from the space station with bad skin?
 
They're all getting to be like that now. And I'm starting to understand why.

I've been working with a company that's developing some new technology around pharma and had the chance to interview some folks that are developing new drugs (and repurposing old orphan drugs). Most of the new drug development is done by start-up/entrepreneurial companies who are not funded by the big guys (keeps potential losses and research costs off their books). The funding comes from government grants and the VC world (or universities). It takes 4-5 years, maybe longer, to get through FDA approval, and the cost for the whole process is north of $100 million. Per drug. Once proven and approved, the big guys buy out the small companies (one recently got bought out by a big company for something north of $1 billion), so the original investors get their ROI. To make sure there's plenty of profit for the big companies, the prices are set high.

The big companies now own the patents and IP - they WILL invest research money for different uses for the drug since it's already been proven for something (e.g. reduced financial risk).

Thinking about that, let's say there are 100,000 people that need a given drug. To just cover the acquisition cost of the small company, the big pharma company will need to charge at least $10,000 for the course of treatment. Add in profit, marketing cost, distribution, etc. and it's easy to see how it can cost $20,000-$30,000 for a course of treatment with said drug. Patients, then, will look to insurance companies - who will negotiate prices and fight about paying for it - and then there are PBMs in the middle somewhere.

(And don't think for a moment that Medicare-for-all will fix that).

Welcome to free enterprise!
I worked in big pharma, and sell/consult with them now (as well as other industries). The big pharma companies still do plenty of R&D, but not nearly as much as they used to do. They outsource a lot of work to China, too, who has been learning from us. Wuxi Biotech is getting large. Either way, finding a new compound that does something useful, has decent bioavailability, and few side effects isn't easy. A lot of compounds need to be synthesized, tested, and modified to find one that is useful. Fewer than 1 in a thousand compounds that show desired biology make it through the gauntlet. Those chemists and biologists like being paid, too. This is all before even submitting it for the FDA process mentioned above. A lot of those start-ups either die, or re-purpose themselves. Developing new drugs isn't easy or cheap.
 
A lot of the new and expensive medications have manufacturers coupons. I deal with them on a daily basis, go online and do a google search or see if your dermatologist has any.
 
I think overall, we’d be better off without the FDA
Thalidomide.
Patent medicines.
Radithor.
The recent opioid problem shows some people in the pharma industry to be just as greedy as those in 1906.
 
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My dermatologist recommended a urea based cream. $750 through my insurance company! Yeah, Urea (urine extract).

Careful, that stuff will turn your face orange! If applied by a French prostitute... :D
 
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