Insurance company paid $7422.98 to Teva (Israeli company) for the generic brand of Imatinib.
This is a complete outrage, everyone that has private insurance in America should be outraged at these prices they are ALL paying since anyone with private insurance is paying the cost of this medicine. These generic manufacturers had absolutely NOTHING to do with the research of this medicine and it costs them $135 per year to manufacture it.
It is an outrage and this is what is truly wrong with the government-pharmaceutical industry complex. I am all for a new discovery benefiting from patent protection in order to cover the R&D cost to bring vital medications to market - especially the new class of targeted therapies. Translational medicine from the lab bench through clinical trials can cost well over Billions (with a capital B) of dollars, pound sterling, or whatever currency in use. Billions.
But once the patent runs its course, generic competition should take over and drive down these price to the cost of an aspirin. That is how it should work. The risk taking, discovery company has reaped its profit and benefit and now must discover again in order to keep its profit margin. This is innovation and I support it.
But when the system gets rigged so big pharma company's can keep milking the same patent even though it expired and worse - generic company's are in on the take - this is wrong. It's the fault of the FDA in not approving a lot more competition for generic drugs as well as laws that allow this double dipping.
