Draconian
Pharma
I live by the grace of a drug marketed by
AbbVie Pharmaceuticals. You and your
children will die by their hands. The
vehicle that will be your demise is called greed. It is the driving force behind many other
drug companies as well. Here is my and your
story. I told the story in a previous
blog, Golden Goose Economics, but I
employed satire to tell the tale. Satire
is a language not understood by some, so here is the threat without satire.
In 2009 my annual blood tests showed that I
had CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia) a deadly malignancy. It remained in the “wait and see” stage until
in 2019 the lymphocyte count went up to stage three. At that time my oncologist recommended a drug
called Imbruvica (the generic name is Ibrutinib) at a cost to Medicare of 195
thousand dollars/year/patient. It
required that I pay a three thousand dollar a month copay. I don’t have three thousand dollars a month
over and above my living costs. So, I
turned the offer to extend my life down.
Soon after my turn down I received a call
from a foundation ready to pay my required copay. The young woman asked me what my annual
income was, and then said that I had qualified for the assistance. I have applied for many financial programs in
my life and have never had one approved without income verification. This fact prompted me to ask, “Who funds this
foundation?” She confirmed my suspicions
by answering, “The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.” I understood that the Pharmaceutical (AbbVie)
had priced the drug so high that the bulk of the potential patients could not
afford the copay. And, they would
receive their donation back from the foundation when the copay was
returned. This draconian plan was
probably engineered by Richard Gonzales, CEO of AbbVie. The CLL organization estimates that there are
presently, approximately two hundred thousand Medicare patients with CLL. With this number of clients AbbVie would
recover its investment of twenty one
billion dollars for the patent rights of Ibrutinib in about a year and a
half. This is an excellent return on
investment and spells out the end of Medicare.
There are other pharmaceuticals joining the program. The financial success is no secret among
them.
Who is to blame for this egregious future
ending of Medicare? Let’s start at the
bottom. I am. I am willing to participate in this scam so
that I may live longer. Next up, my
oncologist. They do not prescribe the
drug without knowledge of the preceding events.
They could try to change it with their powerful AMA lobbyists. But, in the short run, if they like being
willfully blind, the drug offers effective patient care. Next up, the pharmaceuticals and their
lobbyists, they fully understand the game.
The CEOs like Gonzales are so infected with greed (the malignant form of
self-preservation) that they are willing to sacrifice the lives of their
children and their children’s children.
At the top of the corruption are your elected representatives. They are the folks that create and enforce
patent rights. You elected them to serve
the people, not the soulless wealth of the nation.
What are patent rights? They are designed to protect the rights of
the creator of a desirable product and to reward the toil of a creator. When Celera Pharmaceutical sold Ibrutinib to
Pharmacyclics for three million dollars it was probably for a fair profit and
to a company capable of logistics required to produce and distribute the
product. Then Johnson & Johnson paid
Pharmacyclics for its patent rights $975 million. Are you starting to smell a foul odor? The next transaction has AbbVie paying $21
billion for these patent rights. A
billion is a thousand millions.
Twenty-one of them is going to result in a very high price for a
lifesaving drug. Are we dealing with
greed now or protecting an inventor? The
purpose of any law is a shield for those in need of protection, not a sword for
the greedy. A well written patent law
would protect the creator and perhaps a distributer with the purchase at
perhaps 15% over the book value of the company, but no protection to a third
purchaser. This would be fair and
effective. With the large dollar
influence on those who govern us, fair and effective is rare.
Cheers, Old
Buz December 4th,
2023
Remember:
“One cannot fool all of the people all of the time … and that is why we have two political parties.” - Anon
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