So, bonus points for Abbvie investors, then?

Still, its a pity that curing the world of a major disease is still something the business world fails to understand…

—-

First there was prohibition and gangsters like Al Capone. Then the wise guys moved to Las Vegas and organised crime became legal.

Now there is Big Pharma, and organised crime is even more legal and widespread.

Bastard gangsters, all of them!

Hi Hazel & klhilde,

my view is that both articles are in fact a red herring. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring), as it tries to sidetrack the reader by raising an irrelevant (or less relevant) topic (e.g. there is competition between Big Pharma companies or HCV drugs are prices in US similarly as in the rest of the world …. ) and afterwards claiming that the original issue (people die because they cannot afford the high prices) has been settled.

@Hazel: I do agree: the article from Forbes is rubbish.
Firstly, the title which is attracting the attention, is not sustained by the content of the article. The conclusions at the end of the article does not sustain why in fact someone should not confuse Shrekli with Hep C drugs when it comes to prices. One might guess why, but the author should have had explained better his view.

Secondly, this LaMattina guy is attacking Froma Harrop saying that her op-ed is fraught with inaccuracies, yet he misses the fact that Froma Harrop mentioned 1 valid argument which was sustained by the content of her article:
– Clearly, the industry needs a new business model in which costs of development are fairly shared. The same goes for breaks on price.

This is a strong conclusion of Froma Harrop that LaMattina is not attacking.
What he does instead is to put in some context (aka the red herring) to distract the attention and induce an idea about how “good” Gilead is.

And thirdly, the conclusions he presents at the end of his article are missing the issue raised by Froma Harrop (that the industry needs a new business model… ) and he formulates his attack on her on the generally valid statement which is not targeting the patent holder’s of Hep C drugs in particular, rather the inflated prices in US for the healthcare:

Froma Harop: “and
-The real problem in American health care is not that we can’t afford what we need. Other countries with far less resources provide as good or better health care than we do. The problem is that, by international standards, we pay inflated prices for just about everything.” (yeah, I could accept this argument without too much debate)

LaMattina: “the new Hep c drugs… are priced, for the vast majority of Americans, similarly to the rest of the world” (and does this “red herring” means that the rest of the world is paying a fair price??? )

So LaMattina clearly missed the point that Froma Harop raised and his attack on her shows just how much unprepared he wrote the article.

I just threw the article from LaMattina into the latrine…

Cheers,
RHF

Great comment on Forbes Kevin! and Greedfighter- perfect “they may as well be making pesticides”. I would like to use that line.

Hi Hazel,

Please feel free to use any of my comments as your own.