We write about the avarice of health care providers and institutions from time to time, but the touch of this deadly sin is certainly not limited to them. Take, for example, the pharmaceutical industry. Of course, drug manufacturers develop and sell all manner of products with tremendous health benefits, but the industry is replete with bad actors whose exceedingly bad conduct is well-documented. And, it affects us all.
As an example, you may have heard of Martin Shkreli, who is the poster boy for pigs in a tough. He is the despised pharmaceutical manufacturing executive who formed a company whose only goal was to purchase the rights to out-of-patent drugs, with closed distribution systems and no competing generic manufacturers so he could price gouge. The first drug he bought fights a food borne pathogen which can severely affect people with compromised immune systems. He immediately raised the price by over 5,500 percent from $13.50 to $750 per pill. The reason, pure greed.
Now, enter cancer drug manufacturers. Many cancer drugs are sold in single dose vials. They are often administered based on a patient’s weight. Unfortunately, U.S. manufacturers of even the most expensive drugs take a one size fits all approach to the doses they provide. This past week, researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York published a study which found that 33% of each dose of the most commonly used cancer drugs remains in the vial after it is administered and goes to waste. The result – drug manufacturers will receive and additional $1.84 billion just this year for charges from unused medicine. That’s 10% of their expected sales. Obviously, there is little incentive to limit the “waste.” The story is much different in Europe where regulations require drug manufacturers to offer a greater variety of vial volumes. You can read more about the study and its lead author, Peter Bach, a renowned expert on health care policy, here.
Not surprisingly, drug manufacturers are not the only ones that benefit from this practice. As distributors of these drugs, hospitals and physicians make money too. It is estimated they will receive an additional $1 billion this year based on the markup they charge for such medicines. Of course, with so much money supporting the health care lobby, it’s no wonder the times are not a-changin’ in the U.S. Unfortunately, the losers are the cancer patients, who may not be able to afford the necessary medication, and the American health care consumer generally, who must fund this largesse in the form of higher insurance premiums.
There are so many way in which our health care system is designed to fleece the American public. Sadly, this is just one more.
