Drug manufacture

[Tero]

Currently, there are only three insulin manufacturers serving the U.S. market: Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi.

While the medication itself takes a rather direct path from manufacturer to wholesaler to pharmacy to patient, the flow of money is far less direct and transparent. Furthermore, PBMs often manage the pharmacy benefit portion of a health plan on behalf of their clients. Their clients are the payers for health care, such as large employers, health insurers providing pharmacy benefits to Medicare enrollees, health insurers covering state Medicaid program enrollees, or health insurance plans sold directly to individuals. It is important to note, therefore, that PBMs’ primary customers are health plans and employers, not patients.

(Article describes analogs that are longer acting)
Human insulins are available at the pharmacy for $25 to $100 per vial compared with human insulin analogs at $174 to $300 per vial

Rebates/Pharmacy end
The widening gap between the net and list price of insulin in recent years appears to be the result of increasing rebates and discounts negotiated between stakeholders. Manufacturers negotiate with a PBM for discounts from the list price to have their medications placed on a lower cost-sharing tier and/or to avoid constraints on utilization on the PBM’s client formulary.

Based on the Working Group’s review of the insulin supply chain, it is clear that the insulin manufacturers still control the list price of insulin, but a meaningful share of the negotiating power has shifted from manufacturers to the PBMs. (Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs)

An uninsured person with diabetes will pay the full $480 for the insulin, regardless of any rebates offered by the manufacturer.

Insured
Once the deductible is met, if the person’s insurance contract specifies a fixed co-payment, he or she will pay a flat amount, for example, $50 per prescription, even if the person with diabetes uses multiple vials of the same insulin product per month. However, if the insurance plan requires coinsurance, the person with diabetes will pay a percentage, for example, 20% of the cost of each vial of insulin.

Medicare
Beginning in 2019, beneficiaries in the standard plan will pay 25% (or $120 per vial in this example) of the cost of their brand-name prescription drugs once they meet their deductible until they reach the out-of-pocket maximum.

https://diabetesjournals.org/care/artic ... king-Group

[Tero]

Drug users found new skin destroying drig.
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/13/11913891 ... -treatment
Xylazine has become a commonly used non-prescribed drug in the United States where it is known by the street name "tranq", particularly in Puerto Rico.[8] The drug is being diverted from stocks used by equine veterinarians and used as a cutting agent for heroin and fentanyl, causing skin sores and infections at injection sites, as well as other health issues.[9] Fentanyl mixed with xylazine is known by the street names "sleep-cut", "zombie drug" and "tranq dope".

[Svartalf]

Curse them fucking drug traffickers, cutting drugs so that consumers don't know exactly what they take and how much of it is no less than attempted murder.

[Tero]

Another weight loss drug
https://www.boringreport.org/app/all/65 ... 6aa8c9709a

back in my day there were a lot of diabetic drugs developed. You took them for decades and died eventually. The problem was mostly with drugs for the obese. They tended to die, the patients, quite young. There were then a bunch of relatives around the drug maker. No matter how well the drug worked and how unrelated the death was to the drug, they sued.

[Tero]

Not terribly hard drug to make. Cost 40 000 a year. Only twoinjections per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenacapavir

Once the patent expires the HIV infected can all shift to this.
News story in Finnish.
https://www.hs.fi/tiede/art-2000010584241.html

Two injections a year are enough for full protection. This is a marked difference from current treatments that require daily pills.

Currently, however, the new drug costs tens of thousands of dollars. The price is unnecessarily high, say the researchers who investigated the matter, according to news agency AFP.

A year's treatment with the drug currently costs about $40,000, while according to the researchers, it could be obtained for $40.

The drug Lenacapavir was developed by Gilead Sciences .

In June, the company published preliminary results from its clinical trials in Uganda and South Africa. On Wednesday, the results of the trials were published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal The New England Journal of Medicine .