It's on SALE !! SALE !! SALE !!!!

[harland]

The fact that monopolies, by definition, have little incentive to compete doesn't make what I said any less a fact. If a competitor enters the market without beating the monopoly on at least one of the three, it will fail. If a competitor enters the market with better price, quality and/or service, the monopoly has to respond or it will fail.

I thought that in a monopoly economic competition wasn't very probable and therefore why the monopoly exists - which means that competitors would be dissuaded from entering the fray because there is some large barrier to entry (whether it's access to a telecommunications/power network, or good or service that can't be substituted - such as a new drug protected by patents). The point of a monopoly is that the company doesn't have to compete on price, quality, or service and the consumer suffers because of it.

I would counter that many patients without the ability to pay for medicines such as this are often given free supplies under drug company programs.

The counter-counterargument would be that the drug companies only set up such programs so that they can keep the monopoly intact. Sure, it's better than nothing, but there's no mistaking that the drug would be much more affordable if more companies could produce it, possibly allowing wider access to people who need it (even with the drug company's patient assistance program). The drug companies aren't doing this entirely out of the kindness of their hearts, it's probably cheaper to put such a program in place and keep the status quo, i.e. make more profit, than to have the system change and lose their advantage.

[drcollie]

I'm not out to demonize Novartis whatsoever. It was just an example of an monopoly in the thread. As a cancer survivor who was on that drug, I was glad they developed it for its very limited market. I also know from my work as a cancer hot-line volunteer that people who don't have health insurance are at poor odds to survive their cancer - the stories I could tell.....

[aaron]

I think Duane makes a fair point on patents - patents give you a monopoly over production of the patented item. It's a different sort of monopolization than, say, controlling an entire market because your competitors will try to produce items not covered by your patent that compete for the same customers. Much pharmaceutical research is focused on creating drugs that do the same thing as other companies' lucrative, patented drugs. Sometimes by virtue of the nature of a patent, there is no meaningful competition for the patented item until the patent expires.

Monopoly law can treat a company that dominates a market as a monopoly, even if it has competitors. Thus Microsoft was deemed a monopoly based upon its 80+% share of the OS market.

[cuse69]

I may have been a bit too harsh with my term "demonize". For this I offer an apology to Duane. Certainly someone who has born the consequences of treatment for such a dreaded cancer does not harbor any ill will towards the makers of a key medicine in his treatment. Duane please accept my apology if I have offended you here.

Regarding drug patents, they really are a good thing. They enable innovation and invention and ultimately the wonder drugs we have available today. Keep in mind that for every drug approved for market in the US 10,000's are investigated and thousands of these reach some level of development only to fall victim to safety or efficacy issues. After about $800million and half of the patent life (about 10 years) the sole survivor comes to market. And yes the margins are high, but somewhere the company has to recoup the cost of the thousands of drug candidates that are investigated and fail. The sole survivor pays for the 1000's of casualties. Regarding the me too drugs that were so common in past, the FDA has become much more restrictive and for a number of years has greatly reduced the number of new approved drugs. For approval they require new drugs to indeed show advantage over the existing approved ones.