Comment by siliconc0w 6 months ago
It would be easier to squeeze Novo if they included Zepbound from Eli Lilly in the mix - we could argue that if we're going to spend unfathomable amounts on these medications we might as well buy the more effective medication from an American company.
There's no need to spend unfathomable amounts. We just need to establish and enforce the favored nation status if they want to sell their drugs here. No drug (least of all US developed drug) should cost more in the US than it does elsewhere. That's what Trump was proposing in his last term. Because the Congress is corrupt AF, that went nowhere, but maybe we could give it another try now that his mandate is much stronger? As things currently are, we're getting robbed.
What about poor countries? If a drug company had to sell drugs for the same price in the US and a country like Sudan, the result would almost certainly be raising the price in Sudan up to US prices rather than lowering the price in the US to Sudan prices.
That would put the drug out of reach of most of the people in those poor countries.
I mean, I don't think you're enforcing patent law in South Sudan regardless, but they're also just not capable of manufacturing such drugs. To get a trustworthy drug, they pretty much have to buy it from the patent-holder. India, China, and maybe Brazil are about the only exceptions. Theoretically, I guess you could say we just expect the third-world to rely on black market medicine from India, but uh, that has some risks involved.
This will just make it impossible for poor countries to get drugs.
> It would be easier to squeeze Novo
Didn't Novo pretty much tell congress that the only reason why the high price for Ozempic and Wegovy is the US system of middlemen and that lowering it's prices won't necessarily benefit the patients? The CNN reporting from the hearing is pretty interesting[1]. According to Novo Nordisk when they tried lowering the prices of their insulin product, pharmacy benefit managers dropped their products out of coverage, resulting in fewer people having access to the medication overall.
It's not entirely clear that Novo Nordisk is the company that needs to be squeezed.
1) https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/24/health/ozempic-novo-nordi...