Bayer CEO: Cancer Drug for Rich Westerners Only, No Indians

The CEO of phamaceutical giant Bayer has sparked fury after announcing one of the firm's drugs was for 'western patients who can afford it'.

Marijn Dekkers made the inflammatory comments after the Indian company Natco Pharma Ltd. were granted a government licence to produce a copy of Bayer’s cancer drug Nexavar which they will sell for 97 per cent less than the original product.

Under Indian law the government grants compulsory licenses to domestic firms to produce copies of drugs if the original isn’t available locally at a reasonable price, regardless of whether they are under patent.

Mr Deekers, who has previously described India's patent laws as 'essentially theft', said: 'We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for western patients who can afford it.'

Nexavar, which is also known as Sorafenib, has been approved for the treatment of kidney cancer, advanced liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma), and thyroid cancers that are resistant to radioactive iodine treatment.

Currently a kidney cancer patient would pay $96,000 (£58,000) for a year's course of the Bayer-made drug. However the cost of the Natco version would be around $2,800 (£1,700).

This is from the Daily Mail. If you don't trust/like them then here's the Times of India version and the original Businessweek article (near the end).

Marijn Dekkers, that was a fucking idiotic thing to say. Of all the valid and acceptable reasons you can use to criticize the Indians' decision, you just had to go with "rich white folks only, no poor darkies". Also most "Westerners" who are cancer patients probably can't afford a goddamn $96, 000 a year drug!

While several CEOs may share his opinion, most have enough common sense not to say it out loud so their statement can be used against them in the future.

I see where he is coming from in terms of profits since if the Indian version is cheaper but does the same thing people will just export it from there rather than buy the original version. But there are a million other ways he could have said it without sounding like an asshole.

Basically this. And that is that.

I hope his drug works as advertised or he just put an end to his career.

What a dirt bag. Also 96,000$ a year for a year's course of a drug! WOW **** you I'd rather die.

That's about what the deductible is on most of the ACA plans. lol

would you?

I wouldn't afford it either way so might as well die with dignity and give them the finger.

your choice i suppose. i wouldn't expect your death to bother them very much though.

Well yea they wouldn't bat an eye. It has more to do with the notion that I'd try and die while preserving some dignity as a reaction to not being able to afford a cure instead of reacting desperately to such a reality.

@Barbariser: I'm not familiar with the concept of "cancer drug" all I know is that cancer patient either do chemotherapy or radiotherapy. I wonder if this drug actually cures cancer, that'd be such a feat.

Well good for India and **** Bayer.

This kind of garbage is precisely why patent reform is in the cards (although it's probably at least 10 years down the road in the US).

Patents, in theory, are supposed to benefit the consumer by increasing access over the long term. Unfortunately, they've been mangled and lengthened to such a high degree that they no longer serve that purpose and, instead, decrease access.

I think some cancer drugs are used in chemotherapy while others are basically just like pills. Not too sure either.

I don't get this. What difference would it make where the drug was made? If it costs $2,800 to produce why can't EVERYBODY pay that price?

I understand THAT, I just didn't understand what the article was trying to say until I reread it a couple of times. This company Netco isn't Bayer, and Bayer is upset that the Indian government has given this other company the legal go ahead to start producing the drug for much less.

No. Your explanation was unhelpful(due to no fault of your own) because I didn't immediately grasp what the article was talking about until I had reread it. Once I reread it from a better source I came to the same conclusion.

R&D. That's why medicine is so expensive in the US, we pay R&D for the rest of the world.

Exactly. I am for human life over some rich assholes making more money than they know what to do with.

except for indians

I love hearing about companies that absolutely ignore and destroy patents and copyrights, makes me all warm and tingly inside! Good for whatever company duped bayer's shit, **** bayer. That company should be razed to the ground anyways.

It's a complex issue. The idea that potentially life saving therapies and drugs are commercialized and sold is hard to take at times. I understand both sides and really don't know what the best answer is. Certainly, it requires an enormous investment of time, money, and energy to develop successful medicines and therapies. But should these only be available to a select few? Or is that knowledge public domain? And given that, what about every other piece of technology - health related or not?

Bayer's based in Germany, but I think the German government subsidizes the drug so the consumer doesn't bear the full price for its use.

I thought the primary purpose of patent law was to allow companies to profit off R&D and encourage technological innovation by giving them monopolies. Isn't "decreased access" usually a side effect of imperfect markets?

Why do we let companies patent important drugs and sell them for prices far above the cost and distribution of those drugs?

The R&D excuse can only get you so far.

There's no real reason other then greed that makes the pharma industry charge so much. Testosterone has no business being $120 a bottle, Tamoxifen has no business being $50, and Albuterol has no business being $10, etc..

America should start implementing federal contracts like... "Only one company can make x-drug this year only, and they get full compensation via the tax payers any other companies producing, importing, or manufacturing x-drug in the United States is subject to penalties/imprisonment".

It would make the pharma industry fight for the federal contracts, which would be their means of profit and lower cost for citizens. The FDA does the latter, but in some weird sketchy kind of way. Drug manufactures must get the OK from the FDA to be available on the other side of the counter, but for some reason only one or two companies ever get the OK.

For example,

There's only one company that makes testosterone and that's Hikma pharmaceuticals for the United States. So sense there's only one company they charge whatever they want as no other company has gotten the OK from the FDA for the past 40+ years.

The whole way America handles drugs needs to be totally revamped. Either implement some sort of contracts, or allow other pharm companies to get the green light from the FDA.

Theoretically, that brief monopoly is designed to encourage R&D by allowing companies to recoup R&D costs and gain higher profit margins during the patent phase. Then, once the patent expires, competitors can come in and produce at normal profit margins (thereby forcing the original manufacturer to produce at normal profit margins as well through competitive pressures). This process is supposed to increase access of products (in the long term) to the consumer by spurring the creation of new products.

Unfortunately, studies have shown that our patent windows in most cases are absurdly long and our patents are absurdly vague, in effect reducing the availability of products at competitive prices to the consumer.

And thank god for Indian making it so people can actually afford it. No use having a life saving drug if you are going to charge so much that those that need it, can't get it. I couldn't care less how much money they lose over this. So if your goal is to get me to care, stop trying and save yourself the endless effort. I side with India here.

It should be noted that much of the development costs are taken on by the tax payers (through direct grants to drug companies, or more often the drugs are developed at Universities or Biotech firms with government money, where half of usable drugs are developed) Pharmacy corporations always spout nebulous bullshit when asked about exactly how much R&D is and how quickly they recoup that money when they sell their drugs at exorbitant prices. This hints very strongly that their costs are not nearly what they want us to believe. Before you cite some shitty Forbes article claiming it costs $5 billion to develop a new drug you should read this study that analyzed tax returns and other data instead of doing back of the envelope calculations. (the TLDR is that in 2000 the out of pocked cost of bringing a drug to market was about half a billion dollars with a total cost of about $800 million)

lol

Only research shows that the entirety of annual pharammceutical R&D spending amounts to around 50 billion dollars, but the annual industry revenues are around 500 billion dollars. Not to mention, a miniscule portion of R&D is invested in life saving medicine, and the nearly absolute majority of the research money is spent on products which have no new therapuetic value (me too medicine).

for one example:

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020052

Let me put it this way, I would love for pharmaceuticals to give all their drugs for free but the truth is they don't have too and they don't have to sell them at a price were they make just enough to recuperate costs and so and so. And if you don't like it you can start your own pharmaceutical. And that is that.

another, more realistic, approach would be to alter the TRIPS convention and reform global patent laws, with relation to the pharmaceutical industry.

India is one state that big Pharma have been very contemptuous of. They don't allow Pharma to dictate drug prices and patents like the US does. I guess in their case, the people come first. Good for them.

To be fair they don't meet FDA standards, or have the same potency (still doesnt compensate for the high cost for us peeps).

India has proved while they can bootleg like China their quality also sucks like China.

Looking at their viagra is a great example.

The big boss of of Cancer research UK is a Sikh by the way.

Edit - just thought i'll mention that it's kind of a big deal.

what is their incentive to develop new drugs if not money? because they're nice guys? should the research chemist in the lab be paid in good will?

not sure if serious...

Is that the only reason?

Uh, who is going to pay for all the equipment, training, manufacturing facilities, drug trials, etc?