US drugmaker doubled price on potential coronavirus treatment
ft.com
ft.com
Moreover, this ought to be enshrined in law.
Better than nationalization I think would be restrictions on executive compensation and dividends. Take away any personal upside from the decision-makers.
That makes sense. On the other hand, the government has deep pockets. They could buy the company, fund the R&D, and still keep the prices accessible.
In pandemics, this is what we want and need.
I’m also alive to all the ways in which these powers could lead to corruption and overreach in ordinary times. I oppose the Patriot Act and abhor the wars and states-of-emergency without-end. But I’m given to believe we are not in ordinary times.
Buying the company seems a little too much to me but it is an emergency. I don't know enough about the details to know the right decision.
(That’s not what happened with this drug though. They previously rose the price, and lowered it back to the original price due to Coronavirus.)
The price hikes, however, came months before the coronavirus outbreak morphed into a global pandemic, and well before physicians and scientists came to believe chloroquine might prove an effective treatment.
In the past two weeks, Rising Pharmaceuticals slashed the price in half as interest in the drug erupted.
A false news title is worse than pharma companies jacking up prices.
"A drug maker recently doubled the price of chloroquine — but in response to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s cutting it in half" https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/19/a-drug-maker-recently-do...