"Aside from production issues, the large infusion of taxpayer dollars into remdesivir has
not resulted in the product being made available at a reasonable price. A study from four institutions, including the University of Liverpool and Howard University, found that remdesivir can be manufactured at $0.93 per day or $12.50 per patient.16 Yet, in June, Gilead announced that the company will charge government programs, including the U.S. government’s ... Department of Veterans Affairs, $2,340 for a six-vial, five-day treatment course ($390 per vial).17
For patients with private insurance, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, Gilead will charge 33% more or $3,120 (the equivalent of $520 per vial) for the exact same treatment.18 Gilead did not announce the pricing structure for the uninsured.19 It is unfortunate that Gilead has chosen to place its profit margins over the interests of Americans suffering in this pandemic. "
Written by
MBAnderson
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Of course they will charge as much as they can get away with. The pharmaceutical industrial complex is based on the disease model. The doctors who are trained at medical schools have had hours and hours of training on how to prescribe medications. It's convenient. They don't have to investigate more. They just prescribe.
The doctors we pay attention to are those who believe in the health based model. They are concerned about the patient as a whole and how to remediate what caused the disease in the beginning. You would never, ever find one of the doctors we have seen prescribing multiple prescriptions, most of those prescriptions to take care of the effects of the earlier medications they prescribed. There is a reason people are getting sicker and sicker all the time, especially in the U.S.
I wish there were ways to respond to HU posts with something other than a "like." If this were Facebook, the angry, sad, and wow emoticons would all be more fitting than a "like." Ugh.
PS re supply; "In an interview with CNBC, Gilead's CEO Daniel O'Day mentioned that a large part of the supply would go to the U.S. without specifying the amount.15
Hypothetically speaking, if Gilead supplies 85 percent of its remdesivir to the U.S. alone, only 1.7 million of the 4.6 million confirmed COVID-19 patients in the U.S. (as of August 3, 2020) would have access to a full treatment. Even at 90 percent, just 1.8 million patients will receive remdesivir. This dangerously low supply and unmet demand is an example of market failure. "
What makes you think this drug is safe? Remember when we were told that smoking was safe, and doctors were lighting up cigarettes. Many knew smoking caused cancer. What about roundup? We were told that was safe. It is extremely poisons and harmful to the body.
What makes you think it works? I realize this is gamekeeper turning poacher with you guys but there was something hasty and questionable about the FDA decision to approve
Remdesivir has its place once/if you get hospitalized. Though your shock won't end at the prescription cost.
"Rae coauthored a similar study in March, which found respiratory patients put on a ventilator for four days or more ran up hospital bills of $88,000 on average."
"A hospital may charge you five dollars for aspirin because that also helps pay for the nurse that administers it and monitors your response...Those who do end up on a ventilator end up spending one or two weeks on a ventilator a long time so those bills can be quite astronomical"
"A Hospital Forgot to Bill Her Coronavirus Test. It Cost Her $1,980...Across the country, Americans like Ms. Krebs are receiving surprise bills for care connected with coronavirus. Tests can cost between $199 and $6,408 at the same location...Aside from mandating that Covid-19 tests cost the patient nothing, there are no new rules to protect insured Americans from coronavirus treatment bills. Health policy experts worry that even those with good insurance could end up facing high costs."
Why don't you ask Howard University or Liverpool University why they don't produce it for $12.50 per vial and mass produce it for that amount?
I can tell you why you/they don't because they can't produce it in any quantity that is why.
Such an ignorant article/letter.
It is a questionable IV drug anyway...NEJM May 22 Prelim ---
"The Kaplan-Meier estimates of mortality by 14 days were 7.1% with remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo (hazard ratio for death, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.47 to 1.04). "--- the HR of .70 tells us that REM was better than the placebo(?)
"Grade 3 or 4 adverse events occurred in 156 patients (28.8%) in the remdesivir group"
"Serious adverse events occurred in 114 patients (21.1%) in the remdesivir group"
"Mortality was numerically lower in the remdesivir group than in the placebo group, but the difference was not significant "
"There were 132 patients in the remdesivir group and 169 in the placebo group who had not recovered and had not completed the day 29 follow-up visit. "
Why don't you ask Howard University or Liverpool University why they don't produce it for $12.50 per vial and mass produce it for that amount?
I can tell you why you/they don't because they can't produce it in any quantity that is why."
Perhaps for the same reason we do not ask Dunkin' Donuts to produce the stuff. They are universities, not pharmaceutical companies. Their business is to study, not manufacture. What they produced was a study of costs.
I could pay both f you $15/hr and teach you how to make a burger cheaper than McD, but no one would buy it...especially when they found out you couldn't make more than one because you didn't know how, but you told the WPost you could beat McD at their own game.
The issue isn't cost guys; one of you spent $40k on 1 brain surgery in hopes of helping your PD.
The issue is --- does this drug significantly (>75%) save people from covid-19 death? If it did, $3,000 would be a "steal". Obviously it doesn't. We all know it doesn't. So, $3K/ treatment is questionable at best even with 160,000 people dead in the US already. The cost/benefit is marginal...realistically unless everything is free except for those who pay taxes (few of us actually do).
So fire the fed dude who did the deal with Gilead and check his stock holdings while you are at it. Then send your resume to Fauci or DJT. Expect a background check if you get any interest.
Ha. Well put, except I don't see that the 2 universities told the Washington Post that they could do better. They investigated the cost issue and one of the issues is cost if taxpayers are being cheated out of tens of millions of dollars over what you define as a semi-worthless product.
"Back in Wuhan, where the lockdown was finally lifted on April 8, China’s bat woman is not in a celebratory mood. She is distressed because stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab—despite the fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously studied. Other scientists are quick to dismiss the allegation. “Shi leads a world-class lab of the highest standards,” Daszak says."
Of course the deeply cynical amongst us might point out this was the reason that cheap generic hydroxychloroquine was found "not to work".
And supplementing with Vitamin D apparently is of no benefit despite:
"Four of the (five) studies found an association or correlation between a lower vitamin D status and subsequent development of COVID‑19. However, confounders such as body mass index (BMI) or underlying health conditions, which may have independent correlations with vitamin D status or COVID‑19, were not adjusted for"
"Recovery (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 therapy) delivered widely accepted verdicts on two other treatments. It revealed that dexamethasone, a cheap steroid, reduced deaths by one-third (they used a percentage which is bad statistics-sharon) in patients on a ventilator and showed that hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug controversially touted for COVID-19, did not benefit hospitalized patients."
Realistically, "454 (21.6%) patients allocated dexamethasone and 1065 (24.6%) patients allocated usual care died within 28 days"
how would we separate the role of early vs. late intervention, hospitalization already implies some degree (or more) of significant illness. Seems to me that hospitalization, hcq success, and dex success (and remdisavir too?) appear to be affected by earliness of treatment, thus also related to accuracy and turnaround speed of testing.
#1 We do separate the intervention stages often times to absurd degrees. Re-read the trial reports to understand how they attempt to deal with this issue.
#2 I believe you are correct "appear to be affected by earliness of treatment", actually not only "appear", but are affected.
#3 Leaving aside asymptomatic cases who abruptly need hospitalization...efficacy is tangentially "also related to accuracy and turnaround speed of testing." Of course, assuming testing actually takes place. Often a big "if".
I meant to mention the issue of what I think is the huge universe of "not-tested" (and not "re-tested" of course since second&third&fourth new infection can happen), yes...behind which I remember a couple authorities estimated that in the US at least the number of actual infections could be as much as 10 times those reported...disregarding those cases of flu, confusion with flu.
Also assumed that "asymptomatic," because no symptoms to notice in the first place, by definition need no hospitalization.
But I guess I have trouble giving full shrift to any global statistics I don't get to see how they are validated.
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