[naga_sadu]

Here is an article taken out of medicines sons frontiers.

Novartis was one of the 39 companies that took the South African government to court five years ago, in an effort to overturn the country's medicines act that was designed to bring drug prices down. Now Novartis is up to it again and is targeting India.

India produces affordable medicines that are vital to many people living in developing countries. Over half the medicines currently used for AIDS treatment in developing countries come from India and such medicines are used to treat over 80% of the 80,000 AIDS patients in Médecins Sans Frontières projects.

If Novartis is successful in its challenge against the Indian government and its patent law, more medicines are likely to be patented in India, making it very difficult for generic producers to make affordable versions of them. This could affect millions of people around the world who depend on medicines produced in India.

Tell Novartis it has no business standing in the way of people's right to access the medicines they need. Sign on and urge Novartis to DROP THE CASE against the Indian government.

There's a petition- please sign and keep vital medicine away from exclusivity!

https://www.msf.org/petition_india/international.html

And look at the schwines' website regarding corporate citizenship

Corporate citizenship at Novartis rests on four pillars:
Patients - discover high quality healthcare products targeting unmet medical needs
Ethical business conduct - establish a high-integrity corporate culture based on trust, respect and compliance with legal regulations
People and communities - ensure the livelihoods of our people while being a good neighbor in the communities where we work and live
Environmental care –minimize our use of natural resources and reduce our environmental footprint

So, let all those who aren't affluent and wealthy aren't humans?! Fucking sick! First they say we can't indulge in a plant. Then they say that people who don't have the $$$ should be left to die- just to protect the exclusivity of their product.

In this particular case, the swine also claim that the amount of $$$ invested in discovering the drug will be lost if the local government replicates and distributes it as generic medicine. Well, that's false.

First off, Novartis has brand value. So, people who can afford treatment given by Novartis- which is WAY high are unlikely to shift to a generic alternative. As a matter of fact, many upper end brand purchasers go by brand name and not functionality. The market of these generic produce are those who couldn't afford the brand. And people who can pay for the brand wouldn't risk switching to a generic produce- especially if it's a life saving medicine.

As in, a custom shoe maker from Calcutta making a shoe for 500 Rupees is unlikely to affect the demand for Allen Edmonds bespoke shoes. Or- it's like Rolls Royce suing any car producer for entering the luxury car segment at a cheaper price. Except now, the case is not a luxury good like custom fit shoes or luxury cars- it's about a human life. Should exclusivity spell out to such a degree that those who can't pay for it should be left to die a slow and painful death (an AIDS death ain't pretty)?

PLease people, sign this petition and get as many to do this, it will surely reflect as good karma on our parts!! THanks in advance, peace!

https://www.msf.org/petition_india/international.html

Done - happily.

ws

[naga_sadu]

Thanks Wall_Street!

Actually, the American working class was supposed to be one of the beneficiaries of the generic progs. Whether you know it or not, a HUGE % of working class Americans come to S. Asia for availability of cheaper and quality medicine. Health tourism is a lucrative industry for the locals and a beneficial service to the foreigners.

The process of spearheading mass health tourism to even more people worldwide was on the decks. Thanks to corporate fuckbags like this, such progs become an increasingly difficult to launch by the day...

[Gangabiss]

Okay I've signed it. Fuck all these big pharmeceutical companies making money off peoples misery...fuck them in the dickhole with a rusty nail file.

[treble]

yeah its a twisted system, an especially as india is the primary source of human trial subjects for pharmaco's now. They use india because its easier to find clean subjects. people unlikely to have had any medicines before. its tragic to see how they treat people like guinea pigs.

I think another country just approved a law that enables the testing of pharmaceticals on people without their consent or knowledge.

anyway naga sadu worthy cause so I'm there

treb

[PazVerdeRadical]

the big pharmas have to be stopped, but signatures won't do much. i was thinking more in lines of swords, bazookas and what-not...

fuerza!

[genkisan]

Petition signed....and emailed to everyone on my Outlook list.


Pharma-Nazis are the worst kind of Corporate bandit-pirate donkeyhonking scum-whackers.

They hide details on dangerous side-effects, push many unsafe drugs and hold people for ransom with others.

A friend of mine worked on a chemotherapy patent......the drug in question cost $0.18 per dose to make........and was being sold for $1200 a dose.

That mark up is criminal....period.

Here is a chart of production costs vs sale costs for some of the more common anti-AIDS drugs.




And the reasons they give for the huge prices are a load of shit.......independant bodies have looked into it, and the main reason for the uber-gouging of the Pharma-Nazis is record-breaking executive salaries and bonuses

Off the Charts: Pay, Profits and Spending by Drug Companies.
Refuting industry claims that high drug prices are necessary to sustain research and development efforts.

LINKS HIGH DRUG PRICES TO ADVERTISING, PROFITS, AND ENORMOUS EXECUTIVE SALARIES

Washington, D.C. - A new report by the consumer health organization Families USA refutes the pharmaceutical industry's claim that high and increasing drug prices are needed to sustain research and development. The report documents that drug companies are spending more than twice as much on marketing, advertising, and administration than they do on research and development; that drug company profits, which are higher than all other industries, exceed research and development expenditures; and that drug companies provide lavish compensation packages for their top executives.

The report comes on the heels of a recent Families USA analysis that found prices rose more than twice the rate of inflation last year for the 50 most-prescribed drugs to seniors.

Among the nine pharmaceutical companies examined in the report - Merck, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pharmacia, Abbott Laboratories, American Home Products, Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, and Allergan - all but one (Eli Lilly) spent more than twice as much on marketing, advertising, and administration than they did on research and development, and Lilly spent more than one and one-half times as much. Six out of the nine companies made more money in net profits than they spent on research and development last year. [see chart 1.]

The report also documents profligate spending on compensation packages for top pharmaceutical executives. The executive with the highest compensation package in the year 2000, exclusive of unexercised stock options, was William C. Steere, Jr., Pfizer's Chairman, who made $40.2 million. The executive with the highest amount of unexercised stock options was C.A. Heimbold, Jr., Bristol-Myers Squibb's Chairman and CEO, who held $227.9 million in unexercised stock options. [see charts 2 and 3.]

"Pharmaceutical companies charging skyrocketing drug prices like to sugar coat the pain by saying those prices are needed for research and development," said Ron Pollack, Families USA's executive director. "The truth is high prices are much more associated with record-breaking profits and enormous compensation for top drug company executives."

Pollack added, "Drug companies' commitments to research and development are dwarfed by those companies' expenditures for marketing, advertising, and administration."

In 2000, the pharmaceutical industry was, once again, the most profitable U.S. industry, and profit margins in the industry were nearly four times the average of Fortune 500 companies. According to the Families USA report, three companies - Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Abbott Laboratories - received twice as much in net profits than they spent on research and development. Three other companies - Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, and Allergan - received more money in net profits than they spent on research and development.

"The pharmaceutical industry's repetitious cry that research and development would be curtailed if drug prices are moderated is extraordinarily misleading," said Pollack. "If meaningful steps are taken to ameliorate fast-growing drug prices, it is corporate profits, expenditures on marketing, and high executive compensation that are more likely to be affected, not research and development."

The Families USA report is based exclusively on the annual reports submitted by the pharmaceutical companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Since Families USA periodically reports about price changes for the 50 drugs most frequently prescribed for seniors, the report focused on the SEC filings for fiscal year 2000 of the nine pharmaceutical companies that market, or are the parent corporations of the companies that market, these 50 drugs. Mylan Laboratories, a much smaller company than the nine companies analyzed, could not be examined since it had not filed its annual proxy statement with the SEC at the time the report went to press.

This report is available on the Families USA website, www.familiesusa.org.

Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers. It is a non-profit and non-partisan advocate for affordable and high-quality health and long-term care for all Americans.

.


2000 Financials for U.S. Corporations Marketing Top 50 Drugs for Seniors



Five Highest Paid Drug Company Executives Salaries
2000 Annual Compensation Exclusive of Unexercised Stock Options

Chart 2 - Salaries
William C. Steere, Jr.
Chairman
Pfizer Inc
$40,191,845


John R. Stafford
Chairman and CEO
American Home ProductsCorporation
$27,008,927


Edward M. Scolnick

Executive VP
Merck and Co., Inc.
$26,454,600

Richard Jay Kogan
Chairman and CEO
Schering-Plough Corporation
$21,444,020

David W. Anstice
President, the Americas
Merck and Co., Inc.
$19,600,975



The Five Drug Company Executives Salaries
with the Largest Unexercised Stock Options in 2000

Chart 3 - Compensation
C.A. Heimbold, Jr.
Chairman and CEO
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
$227,869,513


Raymond V. Gilmartin
Chairman, Pres., and CEO
Merck and Co., Inc.
$181,252,976


William C. Steere, Jr.
Chairman
Pfizer Inc.
$130,944,439


K.E. Weg
Vice Chairman
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
$84,282,547


John R. Stafford
Chairman and CEO
American Home Products Corporation
$81,847,569

The only reason anyone needs 250 million dollars in stock options and 40 million a year is to feed a monsterous and diseased ego......these fucking swine should have their nutsacks fed to them on global TV for their infinite crimes of greed, resource hoarding and exploitation.......grrrrrrrr.

I have said it before, and will say it again"

As long as profit is the only driving force of human society, our species will continue to behave in a malignant and entropic way, which will lead to our extinction......soon.


And as long as the paradigm remains as it is, evilness like this Novartis bullshit will continue, and continue....and will get worse.

[naga_sadu]

Pharma-Nazis are the worst kind of Corporate bandit-pirate donkeyhonking scum-whackers.

They hide details on dangerous side-effects, push many unsafe drugs and hold people for ransom with others.

Couldn't agree with you more!! Yup, he's right- vioxx has killed more people than the Osama Bin Laden.

Off the Charts: Pay, Profits and Spending by Drug Companies.
Refuting industry claims that high drug prices are necessary to sustain research and development efforts.

That's a load of shit...

Our public sector has tackled pharmaceutical R&D pretty efficiently. As a matter of fact, enough to sustain the bulk of international medical efforts in LDCs (lesser developed countrys). The backbone of the Indian pharmaceutical PSUs have provided much affordable relief to people from as far away as Africa and Latin America.

Without the branding and markups, medical r&d doesn't cost that much at all. The PSU is a very carefully planned system created by our founding fathers, for the betterment of all humanity. Hope our current crop of leaders don't succumb and throw it away.

There was another case in the late 70s. But then, we still had a strong government who could give the MNC fuckjobs a big middle finger. HOpefully, our current crop of leaders will repeat the good work, but I'm doubtful

yeah its a twisted system, an especially as india is the primary source of human trial subjects for pharmaco's now. They use india because its easier to find clean subjects. people unlikely to have had any medicines before. its tragic to see how they treat people like guinea pigs.

Actually, our PSU (Public Sector Units) were considered at par w/ one of the best in the world in terms of quality service and technology. All that mess reg. using test subjects as guinea pigs, the corruption of the medical field started after Pharmaceutical giants were allowed entry into the economy after this so called "liberalisation of commerce"- a costly mistake my future generation will live to regret.

If you take out the large scale private sector out of the healthcare equation, you'll find that Indian PSUs are very capable of providing quality healthcare at affordable prices- a major reason for health tourism as becoming the most active in recent days. But the increasing encroachment of the private sector into this lifesaving industry is making that a "once upon a time" kinda story.

Our medical research was made possible by careful planning and even harder toiling. And it could even benefit the lesser fortunate from the US and Europe. Let's not allow profiteering to destroy the Indian medical PSUs!

[ThaiPhoon]

Just the fact that some people could actually want to commit such indecencies makes me want to spew!

signed

[H. Wurst]

signed