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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Not true at all. Look at Bio drugs for example. Even when they are to be generiqued, there is almost no company jumping in to make them because it's damn hard to make in the first place and there is very little incentive to do so, so the major players stay in place. A good example: all injectable diabetes drugs, but there are others out there as well.

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Absurd, the price of albuterol has gone up 10 fold since patents have been reinforced on it. When companies have patents on life saving drugs they can charge whatever they want. If they have no patent, they are forced to keep the price low enough so no one wants to compete.

The new albuterol inhalers are inferior to the old. The "innovation" was the removal of CFCs (asthma inhalers were an exception to the CFC ban, until recently). This required new, patentable, formulations (though the 'active' ingredient remained the same), which gave us the sucktastic, easy-clogging, overpriced sulfate-based inhalers we have today. The pharma companies were all too willing to go along with the EPA on this one. The FDA and EPA would have you believe this transition went smoothly for asthmatics. They are lying.

Some people are allergic to the new inhalers (sulfates can irritate the airways), which led to the creation of a black market for the old ones, but that supply is bound to run out eventually.

With insurance, I pay about $40 for one of the new inhalers (If you're poor and don't have insurance, you get to die, I guess). Generally they make my breathing more constricted for a minute or two until the albuterol kicks in, so I try to avoid taking a hit from my inhaler unless I'm really having trouble. Nice. Fortunately, since I moved to a beach town on the coast of Florida last year, I haven't needed my inhaler very often. Unfortunately, I'm no longer willing to relocate for work (dirty, city air is the worst), now that I've found a place where the air isn't trying to kill me. :)

You do understand that the profits go partly back into making new drugs? And also partly into paying people with families?

Again: I understand the need for keeping medicines cheap but the removal of patents seems like an overkill with adverse effects.

> If they have no patent, they are forced to keep the price low enough so no one wants to compete. ... And no one feels like inventing a new drug that will immediately be copied and sold at a price near that of the raw materials (the only overhead is the factory) making it impossible to pay all the scientists who are working on the next drug.

I was simply counter-pointing the contention that patents don't affect prices. You are making a completely separate argument.

I can't tell if this is a reputable site but it catalogs drugs as they become generic:

http://www.drugs.com/generic-approvals.html

I know people who have fought not to have generic or bio-similar drugs.

Anyway, can you provide references to validate your claim? Just because someone says something on the Internet doesn't make it true.

Look at all Insulins - there are no generics. http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-there-no-generic-insul...

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