Wall Street's pressuring key healthcare firms to hike prices over the coronavirus crisis. Audio here

[Celerity]

of bankers asking drug companies, firms supplying N95 masks & ventilators, to figure out how to profit from the Covid-19 emergency.

Link to tweet

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-vaccine-medical-supplies-price-gouging/

IN RECENT WEEKS, investment bankers have pressed health care companies on the front lines of fighting the novel coronavirus, including drug firms developing experimental treatments and medical supply firms, to consider ways that they can profit from the crisis. The media has mostly focused on individuals who have taken advantage of the market for now-scarce medical and hygiene supplies to hoard masks and hand sanitizer and resell them at higher prices. But the largest voices in the health care industry stand to gain from billions of dollars in emergency spending on the pandemic, as do the bankers and investors who invest in health care companies.

Over the past few weeks, investment bankers have been candid on investor calls and during health care conferences about the opportunity to raise drug prices. In some cases, bankers received sharp rebukes from health care executives; in others, executives joked about using the attention on Covid-19 to dodge public pressure on the opioid crisis. Gilead Sciences, the company producing remdesivir, the most promising drug to treat Covid-19 symptoms, is one such firm facing investor pressure.

Remdesivir is an antiviral that began development as a treatment for dengue, West Nile virus, and Zika, as well as MERS and SARS. The World Health Organization has said there is “only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy in treating coronavirus symptoms” — namely, remdesivir.

The drug, though developed in partnership with the University of Alabama through a grant from the federal government’s National Institutes of Health, is patented by Gilead Sciences, a major pharmaceutical company based in California. The firm has faced sharp criticism in the past for its pricing practices. It previously charged $84,000 for a yearlong supply of its hepatitis C treatment, which was also developed with government research support. Remdesivir is estimated to produce a one-time revenue of $2.5 billion.

snip


audio:

Cardinal Health Barclays Health Care Conference March 2020

https://soundcloud.com/the-intercept/gilead-sciences-at-the-cowen

[Locrian]

1. it's not just COVID-19 that is a deadly virus... Wallstreet is a parasite as well - n/t

[malaise]

2. Jebus Effin' Krist

[genxlib]

3. If this happens

Then these assholes deserve harsher treatment than the average Joe hoarding and selling hand sanitizer.

On the other hand, it is The Intercept so I will be careful before I jump to conclusions.

I think there should be a pharmaceutical version of Imminent Domain. In the real estate world, you can choose not to sell your property to the Government up until it is deemed to be important to the public. But if you are the last parcel standing in the way of a massive highway, they will force you to sell for whatever is deemed fair.

Drugs should be the same way. If it comes down to an emergency, the Government should have the right to buy the patent and put it into production without restriction. Yes it is a dangerous precedent and it has slippery slope all over it but it could be necessary. It is necessary if only to ensure the necessary pressure for the drug companies to behave. I don't think it would actually be enacted because the pharma companies would risk devastating PR issues if they held out for ransom prices.

[Celerity]

4. Lee Fang is a rock solid investigative reporter, I have read his articles for years, before he went

the Intercept as well.

Previously, he was a reporting fellow at The Nation Institute and a contributing writer at The Nation. Fang was also a writer at progressive outlet the Republic Report. He began his career as an investigative blogger for ThinkProgress. In 2018, the Izzy Award of the Park Center for Independent Media was awarded to Fang and fellow Intercept reporter Sharon Lerner and was also shared by investigative reporter Dahr Jamail, and author Todd Miller.

[genxlib]

5. I hear you

And I have little doubt that these conversations are happening.

To a certain degree, I think they have to happen so that they can hear what they sound like when they say it out loud. Then, in a sane world, they can get shouted down and outvoted by the people with a remnant of a soul.

I am cynical by nature but I think that most companies will behave right now. I don't think they will do it out of some great moral code or civic duty. I just think they realize it would be a fatal PR move to be seen as profiteering right now. There is plenty of money to be made without tripping any alarms.

[Celerity]

6. +1

[Laelth]

7. Vile. n/t

-Laelth