Comment by s1artibartfast 17 hours ago
I think these calculations are wildly optimistic. As far as I can tell, they basically ignore the cost of development, labor, quality assurance, and regulatory.
It is like estimating the cost of a rocket based on the price of metal.
Linking a paper with bizarre assumptions, regardless of what the title or abstract claims, simply can’t be productive or helpful.
It can only lower your credibility and the credibility of the associated arguments…
It is important to distinguish concepts here.
One concept is a single firm selling a branded product in multiple markets. Novo Nordisk sells at different prices in different markets, but the product is all of equal quality, and usually comes off of the same manufacturing line globally, or one of a few.
The other is usually generics made by entirely different companies. These can vary greatly in quality, from identical to deadly. It is a bit of a stereotype, but you usually see higher quality control and less fraud in US and western European manufacturing than say India, China, or SEA.
Having worked for US drug manufacturers, they deeply desire to move manufacturing to Asia where they can, but dont because of frequent quality issues when they do.
You were claiming non-US markets were:
> less pure ingredients, less stringent QC
Why don't you link to a paper or source showing that to be true? If you want to discuss credibility.
I made a sibling comment agreeing with that point and expanding on why.
However, bad data is bad data. If I said the moon creates waves because it is made of cheese, I think it is completely legitimate to point out out that it is in fact not made of cheese.
I think you've lost sight of what the discussion was about.
The person above was claiming they were using substandard versions of their medication in non-US markets where the retail cost is lower. I was pointing out that the manufacturing cost is so low, that doesn't make sense.
Your point now has nothing to do with the discussion being had.