China created a new cancer drug that will be sold in the US, but at what cost?
FREEEDUM
The authors [of a study] found that of the 60 drugs they studied – representing one-fifth of all drugs approved in their study time period of 2009 to 2018 – there was no association between estimated research costs and the drugs’ listed price.
“Drug companies charge what the market will bear,” the researchers said. This is influenced by demand for the drug, whether patients need to continuously take it, and existing market competition.
When [the Chinese cancer drug] Toripalimab was approved, there was speculation the drug could be priced at a significant discount compared with its main competitor on the US market. This stemmed from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly promising that the Chinese PD-1 inhibitor they were seeking FDA approval for would come at a 40 per cent discount if approved.
But during an investor call after Toripalimab received approval, Dennis Lanfear, the chief executive of Coherus, said such a “heavily” reduced price was off the table, according to FiercePharma.
Keytruda, New Jersey-based Merck & Co’s main counterpart to Toripalimab, is also sold in China and its list price on entering the market was half its price in the US, according to FiercePharma.
Lmao just reminds me of this video I watched a while back when a Chinese pharmaceutical company had to negotiate the price of their drug with the government and the way the representative was sweating every time the government rep said lower the price had me so weak. Mans had to call his boss several times and then ended up giving the government the price they wanted anyway 💀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22TvvWBXnb8
Skip to nearly 2 mins in for the China part.
This is enough to make you tear up. Knowing how expensive medicine is in liberal ‘democracies’.
This is also one of the reasons it’s hard to learn Chinese. You can hear the words but they don’t make sense:
Capitalist rep, offering a high price: This is the best we can do.
Chinese official: no
Rinse and repeat
Capitalist rep: This is the absolute lowest we can go.
Chinese official: The price. It sounds like death to me. I think you can shave off four cents.
Capitalist rep, defeated: okay.
Incomprehensible to westerners.
The official knows, too, lol, that the lower the price, the more likely the rep is getting sacked and so might be relying on state medicine without a private parachute. The lower he goes, the greater the incentive to get that price down even lower by both parties. Beautiful.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
ASPI: Xi Jinping is genociding the cancer cells.
That’s the cost of “Freedom and Democracy”
