Originally published September 26 2015
Blame government created monopolies not the free market for CEO Shkreli's drug price gouging
by Phil Pepin
(NaturalNews) Once again capitalism is being blamed when it doesn't exist in the pharmaceutical industrial complex. What is being over looked by most of the mainstream media is the history of Daraprim.
It's not a new drug, but one that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1953. The patent long ago has expired. The primary ingredient pyrimethamine has been marketed as a generic drug at a very low cost. So how does the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Mark Shkreli get away with a 5000% increase on a generic drug? It's simple, the government gave him a temporary monopoly.
In Derek Lowe's article in Science Transitional Medicine, he explains the root cause of the problem is government intervention."The FDA grants market exclusivity to companies that are willing to take "grandfathered" compounds into compliance with their current regulatory framework." This is also known as the Federal orphan drug law. To be clear the drug is still generic in that other companies can produce it, but they have to go through government
hurdles to do so.
Derek Lowe's article explains the history how Daraprim originally marketed by GlaxoSmithKline, became Turing Pharmaceuticals drug to market.
It's important to understand the market for Daraprim's use as an AIDs drug is relatively small. To recoup the research costs, the price gets hiked. The other part of the dysfunctional allopathic healthcare system, is insurance companies extreme bias towards pharmaceutical based medicine. Finding coverage for alternative healthcare solutions is virtually impossible. So those who see evil in the "what the market can bear" aspect of capitalism are blaming the wrong culprit, it's really about what the insurance industry offers and what costs it's willing to bear. Ultimately all the extra costs are passed on to all of us.
This is a failure of corporatism, where corporations seek government granted monopolies, not free market capitalism. Unfortunately my sampling of the media covering this issue, all offer the same old failed solutions, government needs to fix the law. No, get government out of healthcare they have done enough damage already.
Phil Pepin
Host of Pursuit of Freedom
Airs Wednesdays 12:00pm EST
NaturalNewsRadio.com
PursuitofFreedomShow.com
Sources:
Science Transitional Medicine
Los Angeles Times
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