(08-18-2019, 08:52 PM)flsprtsgod Wrote:

(08-18-2019, 08:25 PM)HURRICANE!!! Wrote: Stated differently, the US has Free Market Drug Prices which allows the Phama Company to name it's own price.  The real problem is that most of these companies have hundreds, if not thousands of patents, on a single drug, virtually taking any potential competition out of developing a competitive drug.

The one unique case in which the US Gov did get involved was the Martin Shkreli case in which he bought a company and marked the drug up from $13.30 to $750 per capsule.  Even then, however, the Gov did not indict him on charges related to price gauging but rather on securities fraud when he scammed investors (in a ponzi-like scheme) on a prior business deal in which the former company lost money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli

There's little that's free market about the USA. Patent law, Biosimilar production restrictions, Pay for Delay, and Price Fixing all contribute and the government interferes far more than it enables. In the Shkreli case, why didn't another company begin manufacturing the drug and undercut him? Because Uncle Sam forbade it. And price "gouging" should never be illegal though I agree that monopolization should.