[clarge1120]

“Life-saving Drugs are too Inexpensive to Produce”

It’s a ridiculous headline, I know. But, that is the gist of this article. It just doesn’t say so. Pharmaceutical drugs, and the pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated. It is very expensive to comply with drug manufacturing and distribution regulations. Those regulatory expenses are so high that it is simply not profitable enough for any company to produce these cheap generic drugs at a sustainable profit. It doesn’t make sense for a pharmaceutical company to comply with all regulations and make a profit on inexpensive, generic drugs.

The real headline is “Generic Drugs are Over Regulated, Making Them too Expensive to Produce”

[jtbayly]

Your claim doesn’t make sense any more to me than the claim in the article. Costly regulation should simply drive the cost of generics up until they are profitable at a new price.

Your claim is that the market cannot deal with increased costs of a product.

[chii]

> Your claim is that the market cannot deal with increased costs of a product.

which might be true, if the person cannot afford it at this higher price, despite needing the medication. For example, the gov't subsidies for these people aren't high enough.

Despite what people might think, medication and healthcare is not absolutely inelastic.

[Incipient]

Also deregulation doesn't always end well. Especially for a product in ingesting, I'm all for tight controls.