WHAT NOW: The idea that most pharma companies are here to serve patients is a canard. Pharma CEO’s serve themselves with big salaries tied to drug prices and keeping drugs from coming off patent.
Category: Bad Pharma
THE BASICS: A “critical part” of pharmaceutical company AbbVie‘s success is “face-to-face” interaction, CEO Richard Gonzalez explained in an Aug. 27 email outlining its process for bringing thousands of U.S.-based employees back to work. This is beyond irresponsible.
QUICK READ: A reporter for a leading business magazine recently reached out to me and asked “what are Pharma product websites so bad?”. OK, maybe not all of them are that bad but I would bet that 80% are really poor. There is a lot of blame to go around but these facts are still relevant today.
QUICK READ: There was hope that all the negativity towards pharma would start to evaporate as they worked on a vaccine for COVID-19 but that goodwill is being eroded by an industry whose master is Wall Street, not patients.
QUICK READ: Gilead could reap billions from the sales of Remdesivir. Although Remdesivir is the only therapy so far to show a slight impact in helping hospitalized Covid-19 patients a $5000 treatment cost could reward Gilead with tens of millions of dollars in sales.
QUICK READ: Major brands are often wary of conflict, especially in a polarized time. But some are now taking a stand on racial injustice and police violence. As more CPG post their support in Black Lives Matter and the peaceful protestors big pharma is nowhere to be found. Why? Simple…they want to protect their profits and don’t want to temp Republicans from turning on them.
QUICK READ: Via the FT “Gilead Sciences has come under fire for securing a de facto monopoly in the US for an experimental drug seen as a potential coronavirus treatment, with activists accusing the US drugmaker of “morbid calculus” and “the most blatant abuse of the orphan drug act”. This company is a stain on the industry.
QUICK READ:
- AbbVie, Humira’s manufacturer, kicked off 2020 with a price increase in excess of 7 percent on its mega-blockbuster brand-name treatment.
- The increase followed total Humira price hikes of 19 percent during 2017 and 2018.
- The cost of Humira, which is injected via syringe, was more than $72,000 a year on prescription drug websites this week and is not expected to come down until at least 2023.
- AbbVie won dozens of additional patents — what critics call a “patent thicket” — that extended the exclusive market for the drug.
- The top six executives at AbbViw make over $56.6 million.
