Insulin giant pulls medicine from Greece over price cut

[demoleft]

Source: bbc

The world's leading supplier of the anti-diabetes drug insulin is withdrawing a state-of-the-art medication from Greece.
...

A spokesman for the Danish pharmaceutical company said it was withdrawing the product from the Greek market because the price cut would force its business in Greece to run at a loss.

...

Pavlos Panayotacos, whose 10-year-old daughter Nephele has diabetes, has written to Novo Nordisk's chairman to criticise the move.

"As an economist I realise the importance of making a profit, but healthcare is more than just the bottom line," he wrote.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10189367.stm

---

More than 50,000 Greeks with diabetes use Novo Nordisk's product.
looks like the greek state owes the company $36m up to date.


the fountain pen-like device:

[gristy]

1. Insulin and insulin delivery methods are available from mutliple vendors

This is a pretty poorly written article. More questions than answers. In particular, what is meant by "the Greek market"? Novo Nordisk won't ship to pharmacies in Greece? They won't ship to any mail-order pharmacy that ships to individuals in Greece? What? And is there some reason that the old method of a vial and syringe doesn't work and one of these "pens" does? And this is just absurd: "People with diabetes in Greece have warned that some could die as a result of this action."

[demoleft]

2. according to "pavlos", in the forum "children with diabetes", there is no "substitute"...

...as far as Glucagon is concerned (i'm not an expert).

Novo Nordisk announced that it is withdrawing all insulins and diabetes products (including Glucagon!) from Greece, and will only offer (for a transitional period) Protaphane (NPH), Actrapid (Regular) and Novomix 30 in vials.
...
In a nutshell: Greek diabetics are caught in the crossfire of an inept government and a cold-blooded pharmaceutical company. Thankfully Sanofi Aventis has not announced leaving Greece, so Nephele will be changing to Apidra. We are all crossing their our Sanofi will stick around...

Even if Novo Nordisk changes its policy, I will refuse to go back to its products because of the lack of sensitivity it displayed towards Greek diabetics, at a time when Greece is in the troughs of an economic depression.

On a very somber note, Greek diabetics will no longer have access to Glucagon. There is no substitute in the Greek market!

you can have a look at the posts:
http://forums.childrenwithdiabetes.com/showthread.php?t=53927

[Celebration]

4. Removing Glucagon is a big deal

It is a lifesaver in an emergency.

[FarCenter]

18. Isn't it also available from Lilly?

[Dappleganger]

3. In agreement with you

The pens are geared more towards kids and young people to erase the 'stigma' of using one in public, when needed. Most adults I know who use the regular delivery system don't have problems with it (including my type 1 husband and mother-in-law and my type 2 father).

[lurky]

5. "The Greek market" = their single-payer health system.

Yes, they have one, unless big pharma destroys it:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/24/152748/245

[area51]

6. "the importance of making a profit ..."

... but healthcare is more than just the bottom line."

He'd never get far with that 'tude in the states. Profit is everything here, it's why we don't have a right to health care, but insurance mafiosi have a right to our money when the mandate kicks in, even if they decide to deny claims. Profit über alles.

[Imajika]

7. What is the company supposed to do?

They can't stay in business selling the product at a loss. If they do that, they'd just increase the price elsewhere and the rest of us would pay more. Eventually everyone will follow Greece's lead and demand the lower price and the company would just not sell that product anymore.

In a socialized health care system, all drugs will simply not be available to all people at all times.

Some drugs cost so much to develop and produce that they will just not be affordable in a comprehensive collective scheme. If you allow gap insurance and private health care to cover the difference, you will end up with some people getting better care (those with more money or great benefits).

We have to get past the idea that ALL drugs will be available, even the most cutting edge state of the art medicines. Socialized health care does a good job of delivering a basic to good level of care to everyone, but it is never going to be the type of system where the most advanced medicines are available to all. That would simply be too expensive, and it is the trade off made for having good and more equal health care for the masses.

[cosmicone]

8. I agree completely!! What is worse is that new innovations

would be stifled. No one would bring a life-saving drug to market if it can't even break-even.

There are many such drugs in the pipeline.

[tammywammy]

9. Agreed n/t

[underpants]

11. If only, perhaps, they knew some powerful and influential people in power

Gee wonder how they might be able to initialize that paradigm shift

:think:


:sarcasm:

[Yo_Mama]

10. It's not hard-hearted

Think about it. If it can't manufacture the medicine, do the quality control, etc, for what they are willing to pay for it, they have only two choices - stop selling it at that price or drop the quality control. But crappy medicines kill more people than alternatives, so that WOULD be hard-hearted.

And if they sell to Greece at that price, wouldn't all the other countries that group buy under their socialized medicine plans demand the same? Why should they be paying for Greeks to get the medicine?

It costs a lot to make these products in a high-quality way, and if we can't find the money to pay for them, we can't. A lot of treatments are not available on public health-care. That is the trade-off.

[mike_c]

12. your argument would make sense if the profits weren't so exorbitant....

Pharmaceutical corporations don't just make an honest profit for providing needed products-- they exploit human suffering to extort exorbitant profits from sick people or from the social institutions trying to help them. I would be a whole lot easier to accept your argument if Novo Nordisk weren't charging whatever the market will bear for its medicines, rather than simply making an honest profit for a product that people need. Products meant to alleviate suffering should not be priced like products meant to entertain or make life more convenient. Medicines are not luxuries, or at least they shouldn't be.

Personally, my response to this would be to demand that government provide those products at a reasonable price, even if that means that government must manufacture them and directly compete with big pharma.

[Yo_Mama]

13. Yeah, but they were going to be taking a loss

Pharmaceutical companies do have high costs.

In this case, Novo Nordisk would have been taking an operating loss. Claims about huge profits ignore all non-production costs, including often quality control, research, etc.

These products have to be very tightly controlled, with very precise lot monitoring, etc. The plants have to incredibly clean, You pay a lot for testing personnel. Most claims of exorbitant profits ignore both research and quality costs. This is why Chinese knockoffs are so cheap, but you know what? I had a sick dog, and he was killed by Chinese fake drugs that were provided to me by the vet. It turned out that they did not contain the medicine that they were supposed to contain.

There is no way that the Greek government could set up its own plants and make these products for less than Novo Nordisk. You can make crappy medications for less, but crappy medication does not save the lives of diabetics - it kills them. They could go with a cheaper, less convenient product in which packaging costs would be less, but I think that's already available, although it may not be currently sold in Greece.

[Yo_Mama]

14. PS: (Because I am not an industry shill)

I wanted to give you some data. Here's the link to Merck's first quarter financial statement. It is in pdf form:
http://www.merck.de/company.merck.de/en/images/Merck_Q1_Report_2010_EN_tcm82_53192.pdf?Version=

Go to page 3.

Note that return on sales for pharmaceuticals was 11.9, compared to the return on sales for chemicals, which was 28.9. This is a ratio.

To put it another way, on chemical revenues of 584.5 million Euros Merck had ongoing profits of 166 million Euros. On pharmaceutical revenues of 1,514.4 million, Merck had ongoing profits of 179.5 million Euros.

The idea that pharmaceutical companies make huge profits is quite wrong; profit margins in most other industries are much higher. If you go to page 4 in that pdf file you'll see that 28% of their total business is chemicals, from which they derived 48% of their profit.

Edit: I found Novo Nordisk's latest financials:
http://www.novonordisk.com/include/asp/exe_news_attachment.pdf?sAttachmentGUID=9c593fd6-95d4-4ecb-848b-9ef59cc7e92b
Here go to page 14, and scroll down and look at the sales by geographic regions and the segment operating profits. You'll note that North American sales were larger than Europe's, even though the European population is larger, (that's because they get higher prices on average in NA), and even including that in the total, their net operating profit for diabetes treatments was just about 25%.

So their current margin in Greece, which is a price-control country, is probably no more than 18%, and they are being absolutely correct when they claim they will take a loss if they sell at the mandated prices.

[Cleobulus]

15. Greece should probably pull what many other countries pulled on AIDS medication and break the...

patent and manufacture it themselves.

[jberryhill]

16. At less cost? Good luck /nt

[Odin2005]

17. Capitalism = EVIL.

[Lagomorph]

19. So....

Profit-----> Tax <-----Health Care Subsidies, is a bad thing?

Edit: Changed the formula