Drug companies are deciding who shall live and who shall die.

[999tigger]

I do think the company have acted in bad faith and should be penalised, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

 

The same drug is available from loads of other places, so you wonder how the CMA will make a case stick.

 

 

 

Well in this specific case Hydrocortisone has been around since the 1950's, so any patent protection and "right to charge what you want" is long since expired.

 

I would have to review the case notes. Clearly the CMA arent idiots and believe that the rules have been broken. Competition law isnt my area, so cant say or would have to do some research. there must be some rule either in the NHS supply contract.

 

Actually a quick look and the test is two fold.

 

Are they in a dominant position.

 

Did they abuse that position. Acuse can mean abusing custmers which the massive pric rises I think will make that easier to prove.

 

the question then becomes are they dominant as per the argument raised earlier.

[the_bloke]

A part of me wonders how many other suppliers manage to easily hold the NHS to ransom. It sounds like the NHS has little or no bargaining power, which is strange when you consider how large a customer they must be.

 

Again a lot of this probably boils down to public vs private business skills. No private company would have allowed themselves to be in a position where they were forced to pay for a product that was 1200% more expensive than previously.

[geared]

 

Actually a quick look and the test is two fold.

 

Are they in a dominant position.

 

Did they abuse that position. Acuse can mean abusing custmers which the massive pric rises I think will make that easier to prove.

 

the question then becomes are they dominant as per the argument raised earlier.

 

The CMA will argue that as the sole supplier to the NHS they were in a dominant position, the pricing of the drugs demonstrate they did abuse that dominance.

 

The drug company will argue the product is widely available on the open market from many suppliers and so they did not have market dominance.

 

The question becomes is the NHS allowed to see it's own personal list of 'approved suppliers' as 'the market', instead of the the actual market of global companies.

[dangerousedd]

This is a classic example of why the system does not work.

 

On the one hand, why shouldn't a drug company, who has spent millions researching and producing a drug that brings benefit to the lives of thousands of people, be able to charge what they like for it? Contrary to what they would like you to believe, no company does anything for the good of the people - only to line it's own coffers.

 

On the other, if they are allowed to do this then they will certainly make more money from treatment than they could ever hope to do so from actually finding a cure. So there is no incentive to do so. Some people argue that's the only reason we don't yet have cures for many of our most prevalent diseases.

 

Without going down a largely communist route I am not sure there is a suitable solution to this.

 

some people needing Hydrocortisone use it since they had their pituitary gland removed, not really curable.

[samssong]

Samssong did you read the terms and conditions which you agreed to when you signed up for the forum?

Have you any thing to add yet:mad:

[Cyclone]

You were wrong in your original post weren't you, the NHS does have a choice to use other suppliers.

[Obelix]

Have you any thing to add yet:mad:

 

Are you going to address the point he originally made now you've been debunked?

[geared]

A part of me wonders how many other suppliers manage to easily hold the NHS to ransom. It sounds like the NHS has little or no bargaining power, which is strange when you consider how large a customer they must be.

 

The NHS has incredible bargaining power, the issue is it's strangled by idiotic public service re-tape.

Too many people are employed to push paper around a desk all day, ending up doing no good an making everyone elses life more difficult in the process.

 

The NHS has been told to trim the fat several times, but they only seem to cut front-line staff :roll:

[medusa]

Worse than that. If it only has one supplier, then it is negligent. Imagine a case where a critical drug is only supplied by one company. What happens if they cannot supply?

 

Simple business sense would dictate that you diversify your supply chain.

 

I used to work for the pharmaceutical company that holds/held the patent on what is currently the final line of defence antibiotic, colistin.

 

We were frequently unable to supply it as the production process is complicated and a whole raft of ingredients can be unavailable. Batches of the culture needed to produce the product could also fail, as without growing particular strains of Paenibacillus polymyxa in sufficient numbers the antibiotic compound is not in the culture medium in sufficient concentration to separate out.

 

Add to that the fact that the drug is provided as a powder for injection and the batches have a very short shelf life (comparatively) and you can see why the people who rely on the medication (people with cystic fibrosis who have colonisations with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, people with bronchiectasis who have colonised infections, those with life threatening infections caused by Gram -ve infections) could be very much at risk if colistin is the only antibiotic that actually works in their cases.

 

There are reasons why many drugs are very expensive, but I do not believe that this is the case with hydrocortisone. If the NHS complied with repeated price rises without investigating whether other providers could supply at a lower cost then the NHS needs a good kick up the backside, if I'm honest.

 

It's wrong of the pharmaceutical company to raise their prices above the genuine cost rises, but that doesn't excuse the NHS allowing their own processes to keep paying more than necessary.

[samssong]

Radio five live this morning have reported that drugs that are used to treat breast cancer have risen ten fold in price over the last few years.