Once you have a microscope, everything goes under that lens. Two stories caught my eye over the last two weeks that bring breaching sector categorization into sharp relief. The first has been well-noised about: hedge-fund manager Martin Shkreli bought the rights to Daraprim. The Atlantic hasn’t much good to say:
As CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, he acquired an anti-parasite medication called Daraprim and immediately increased the price from roughly $13.50 to $750. In the last 72 hours since that made national news, Shkreli’s attitude and confidence have been duly noticed, reminding Americans that we live in the only country where drug companies set their own prices for life-saving medications. His confidence is the kind of confidence that manifests as Burberry polo shirts and semi-ironic emulation of Flo Rida; conspicuous consumption that does not play well to those suffering toxoplasmosis-induced seizures, preventable with Daraprim.
He’s hedging his bets now – apparently he was in full-fledged private sector mode, where the rule is make as much money as you can. Not a health sector rule.
The other story has not made so many headlines. Treehugger.com‘s Melissa Breyer reports on an impending loss of snake venom antidote:
But as it turns out, the world will have run out of Fav-Afrique [an anti-venom effective against 10 lethal African snakes] by June of 2016 and no more is being made. …
The anti-venom is made by French company Sanofi Pasteur – they are the only manufacturers, but they ceased production last year because they were priced out of the market and are now making a rabies treatment instead. Alain Bernal, a Sanofi Pasteur spokesman, told BBC that the company had offered to transfer the anti-venom technology to others, adding, “Nothing has materialized yet.”
Newsweek adds to the picture:
The pharmaceutical company which manufactured the drug stopped production in 2014 and there will now be a two-year gap before a replacement product becomes available in 2018. …
[Rob Harrison, head of the Venom Research Unit at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine] adds that the problem is exacerbated by the proliferation of cheap but ineffective antivenom treatments which are not bite-specific. Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, is “awash” with antivenoms that come from other continents “that are marketed aggressively and very cheaply but are ineffective,” says Harrison.
The Health sector doesn’t offer choices to curry favor with consumer’s fashion sense, but to increase efficacy. Once again, in both of these cases, we see the operationality of the private sector intruding into another sector, leaving it damaged and incapable of accomplishing important goals. At one time, at least in the USA, marketing of drugs was banned and we could at least hope that the most effective drugs were available – rather than worrying about marketing of drugs to people who know nothing about proper evaluation of the drugs.
Some questions about interactions between sectors are very difficult, but this one seems easy enough – ban medical advertising.
