I think there may have been a thread that I started on this subject, Stan - I'm sure we've had this electronic conversation before. I fear I've expressed myself badly on this. Of course the Pharma industry is highly regulated - the point I was trying to make is that if the profit motive isn't incentivising the industry sufficiently to deliver the desired result, we may need to interfere in the market by looking at alternative ways to provide funds for research. The G20 could agree to set aside a fund based on nations' GDPs to do this.
That's the one, l remember now. Just read the report post in the OP. Seems eminently sensible stuff, and points out that overprescribing is the key issue. In the UK we are pretty good on this, but elsewhere they really do dole out all kinds of drugs as a first response. Had a discussion with a US doctor work colleague a couple of weeks ago, I would have been on at least 3 different long term medicines for years had I lived there. The fact that here I was encouraged to look after myself a bit better first means I definitely don't need them now. Our attitude to medicines is dangerous.
Apparently lack of new antibiotics will kill more people than cancer Does that mean I can start smoking again
Ok I'm about to upset Stan here big time.. Stroller the most innovative research is not done by Pharma... it is carried by researchers in universities, institutes and medical schools . Pharma are much better at taking an idea and running with it (Stan has mentioned insulin himself) What needs to be funded is the independent research, which usually is government funded...but some of the best research in this country is done by researchers working for the Wellcome Trust, which is a charitable foundation and of course Cancer Research UK. The ideas and many innovative solutions are out there already....but it costs so much in time and money to get a great idea from a research through clinical trials...and on to the consumer. For example we have been working on a clinical trial of an already licenced drug on children with a severe but rare neurological disease. It is a "different" use for the drug, whose side effects are already known. We designed the trial first in 2007, we are only 2 years into a 5 year trial. We will not know the answer until 2020 Funding independant clinical researchers and finding a way to push the transition quickly from lab to bedside is the necessity.... Pharma will do what they always do...and cream of the easy and most profitable bits... The harder work is done by the grunt scientists
Why would that upset me Beth, it's the way it works. Grunt scientists do the grunt work, pharma takes the financial risks. And we do discover a few things in our own labs too, though that model is changing. What we need is a way to make treatments which are not commercially viable available. The only way Pharma can cope with something which is for a very small patient group is to charge the earth for it. Which is obviously unfair and unsustainable. If the taxpayers want stuff they will have to pay for it, is the short answer. The Wellcome Trust is great (superb museum). It was of course set up from a legacy from a Pharma company.
That model is certainly changing. I remember when a certain company you and I both love, had a wonderful research group doing cutting edge stuff. It was closed at one months notice and all personel diverted to other projects. Now we and others set up start out companies and wait with fingers crossed, for a Pharma to come and buy us out (making a few grunts millionaires in the process). Yes... true Stan then the Pharma takes the risk on whether they can make money out of the drug, years down the line, after passing all the clinical trials. Risky process....bearing in mind how long it takes to do that However, these trials can be short cut. Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey was first treated with an untested vaccine (not too much risk...as she was doomed to die, if not treated). It was successful and which has now been pushed through very quickly; last month the Gavi alliance for vaccines and immunisation(Gavi is an international organisation - a global Vaccine Alliance, bringing together public and private sectors with the shared goal of creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries) signed a $5m deal to buy a vaccine being developed by Merck. Initial results from a clinical trial in Guinea, which tested the vaccine on 4,000 people who had been in close contact with a confirmed Ebola case, showed complete protection after 10 days. So it can be done. And gives me hope that all will be OK. (My glass is usually very nearly full)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...harma-wants-to-help-pay-for-your-prescription How Big Pharma Uses Charity Programs to Cover for Drug Price Hikes
Good article. The US system (or systems) for paying for medicines is seriously screwed up and perverse. In every other developed nation, as far as I know, the prices are fixed at or near launch through assessment and negotiation with Government bodies, and its very unusual for prices to ever go up, even with inflation, whereas they go up all the time in the US (though the manufacturers discount to the insurers, who still charge the raised prices to the patients). Glivec, mentioned in that article, costs about £18,000 per patient per year in the UK, compared to £62,000 in the US (it is a very good drug by the way). And of course, the patients themselves don't pay anything like the same percentage of the cost of the drugs in Europe as they do in the US. In the UK anything prescribed in a hospital is free and anything you pick up at the pharmacy with a prescription is £7, or nothing if you are a kid, old, chronically ill or unemployed.The US subsidises the drugs prices for the rest of the world, and the Pharma industry is terrified that your government will eventually adopt a more European system - but it probably won't as the lobbyists will be hard at work, as it smacks of 'socialism' and interference in 'markets'. Turing as a company stinks though, even other companies have attacked the way it works. It's ex CEO and founder was completely unrepentant. He resigned and has been charged with defrauding investors. However, all the stuff in that article could be wiped out with a couple of laws. I think co-pay cards are on the way out already, but the US is the one market Inhave nearly nothing to do with. Thankfully.
Just one thing, if you have no insurance then prescriptions are expensive. I helped a friend from hospital after an ankle op and picked up his drugs for him. The pain killer was $55 and the two antibiotics were $155 and $35, luckily he can afford it. On the other hand I do have coverage and my prescriptions are anywhere from $2.40 to $7.60.
Sounds like you have good coverage. Which of course you pay for, to a varying degree depending on your age, income etc. What do you think of Obamacare? It's churlish of me to criticise the US system, it's at least partly responsible for my income. But as the article points out it encourages game playing (and I think the pharmacy benefit schemes are just as guilty as drugs manufacturers in this) and I suspect the patient is the mark in the con. On the other hand, you do get access to the newest and best stuff very quickly compared to the rest of the world.
I'm on the Medicare system so it costs me about $66 a month. Does anyone know what the NHS costs individuals in the UK?
It's funded from general taxation, there is no specific individual figure. The more you earn the more you contribute, if you are not hiding your money offshore, which is exactly as it should be. The NHS as a whole receives £116bn funding from the taxpayer per year. Here is an international comparison of spending.
Cheap isn't it, especially given that most don't put anything like that much in. The US spent an average of $9000 per person on healthcare in 2013. From what you have shared of your health status on here you are getting a very good deal Durbar. And you also help to dispel the commonly held myth in the UK that if you don't have massive insurance in the US you are left to die on the street.
A long time since I had to fill one Col, thanks for the update. I think there are lots of exceptions to paying still.
