the news the what is the cost of a human life? somewhat say priceless, but for many others it's the cost of medication and access to life saving drugs and therapy. unfortunately, global inequality, basic a central drug just out of reach for people in many parts of the world. but the drug industry says it's all just to cover its own car. i'm the i and you're watching the cost of everything. where today we're going to be taking a closer look at the cost of medication. the. ready one study estimated that the average cost of bringing

a new drug to market fell between $1.00 to $2800000000.00. this cost is due to the higher initial cost to develop market and sell a brand new drug. and these estimates also take into account spending on fail trials of all the drug candidates that didn't reach approval. the scientific challenges in drug discovery are another reason why drugs are so expensive. the are in the phase of drug creating a drug can range between $900000000.00 to $2000000000.00 and pharma companies spend about 25 percent of their revenues on r and d. afterwards, drugs undergo clinical trials that allow for the approval of new drugs. these trials can take months even years, and they include testing for efficacy, dosage and side effects. the trials have a meeting cost of $900000000.00 with an approval rate for drugs entering clinical development of less than 12 percent. then finally, there's

a cost of marketing. this new drug farmer companies spend around $30000000000.00 on medical marketing each year. and now there's a cost of manufacturing where the costs per treatment can range from a couple cents to a couple dollars. cost and manufacturing is typically very low once the formula husband died in so boldly by gillian. this new hepatitis c drug received a lot of criticism when i hit the market since the cost manufacturing was only a $150.00. but gillian charged $84000.00, but as you can see, the cost, the manufacturing is not the whole story. it didn't take into account the years and millions spent on r and d. so the matter is very complex. on the one hand expansion, drugs are unaffordable for most people throughout the globe. on the other hand, pharmaceutical companies, they can't develop break through drugs,

allow poor millions into developing them. from their perspective, it's only fair to charge a price that will allow them to recoup their outlay and help them to continue researching and developing better drugs. and for more or let's bring in the ne chris them national field organizer center for popular democracy. so christian, and while pharma companies need to recover their r and d costs, many life saving drugs are simply an affordable sa pharma companies justified in their pricing with the existing model. or does something need to be changed? know their pricing is definitely not justified that these are companies that value profit over people. they're motivated by how much money they can make, not on what is best in terms of health care outcomes and the care that people need . and we've definitely seen this with coven, right? kind of on a grand scale. you would think i missed a global crisis, that when we develop these lifesaving vaccines that we'd want to share that with,

as many people as possible who want to share with their countries. certainly during a pandemic with the understanding that you can't and a global pandemic with a single state solution, right? cobit existing other countries means more variance going to come to our shores. and it's also just the moral sensible, responsible thing to share this technology. but that's not what happens, visor and minturn, i have ordered their technology and refuse to, to give it away to other countries and teach them how to manufacture their vaccines . and as a result of that, we're enter a year 3, i guess, 2 and a half years now of this pandemic. and it shows no particular signs of stopping. and it reminds me of, when jonah thought said after he invented the polio vaccine, i think it was edward r murrow who asked him, you know, what's the patent status of the polio vaccine. and he said like, well there is no pattern like it belongs to people. like he said, like rhetoric, like can you patent the son? because it was inexplicable for him to think that people would hoard that technology. of course, if you develop less than medication,

you should share it with the world. but again, that's not what's happened. visor has used this crisis to increase their wealth and they've done that very, very effectively. and 2021 by this revenue was $81300000000.00, which was double what it was the year before. and that's only continue to increase . and i think they have over 70 percent of the market on vaccines right now. and actually found out earlier this morning that because demand is waning a bit, and governments are buying less back scenes by there is now looking to get into the private market place and they're suggesting possible quadrupling the price of their vaccine. so future boosters and vaccines will no longer be free for us. again, this is in the covert round with kind of extreme mass level example, but this is happening across the board on all sorts of medications, right? it's happening on influence happening, cancer medications. it's not certainly, it's not unique to cobra, i should say. and as a result of that,

when these companies are producing, these drugs have been operated on them. they can pretty much pay for much charge so much they want. and i put, you know, us people who depend on his job, it's arrive in positions where we have to choose between medications and food, or medications, and rents, or medications and housing. one of our members, a friend of mine, someone we organized with. she needed a dental procedure, dental surgery, but her daughter needed medication and other medication her daughter couldn't survive and she had to choose between the 2. so she just did not get a dental surgery which she badly needed in order to care for her daughter. and i like to think in the wealthiest country in the world like no one should have to make those choices. that's what's happening all across the country right now. and we hear those stories all the time with people we organized. said to go back to your question like no, it's the bad faith system built on maximizing profit, not on improving health outcomes. prescription drugs in the us on average cost

around $2.00 times more than those same drugs and other western countries. why is that? or, well, other countries have a different value system. they see these medications as being a public good. and because of that, they have regulatory agencies whose job is to negotiate lower prices. and that doesn't really exist here until recently. doesn't really exist here at all. it's the pharmaceutical companies who are deciding how much to, how much 2 costs for their medications. and unless there is a cheaper alternative, unless there's a generic alternative, they can pretty much charge whatever they want. and that's why they just drive a price as much as they can, and they try to get my profit as possible. and that's their motivation. and recently we did get a huge victory on the front, which is important to mention. and the recent in placement reduction act that just passed, we were able to get medicare, the power to negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of everyone who's on medicare,

which is a lot of people. and that's a huge victory. that's not a small thing. people in the health care worlds have been working towards that for a very, very long time. and like here at the center for popular democracy, we've been working on that for like over over a year because it started as build back better and we eventually ended up with the ira. but we did like, dogging and civil disobedience and lobby visits and all kinds of rallies. and if you remember we went on kayaks and like surrounded sender mentions. yup. and like asked him, you know, to vote to protect art and spanner health care. so that was a huge win for us and we'd like to go further. but yeah, we took a big chunk of the farmers power away from them, but they still have way too much power, which is a particular problem in this country. and yeah, that's why it's, it's just getting worse. and now the study has found that the launch prices of new drugs rose on average by 11 percent every year from 2008 to

2021. what do you think is driving this? i think it's, i mean what's driving that is created mostly, particularly in time of crisis. his last couple of years through recovered as we talked about with pfizer and during the years crisis to drive profit. and we see that housing. we see that happening and housing and real estate, it's going to continue to happen as co continues. other pandemic come as climate crisis come. these companies are just doing whatever they can to drive profit. and another way we've tried to stop that mission in place reduction act. we also got a victory there. and that now, once this goes into effect, for medicare companies won't be able to raise the price of their drug, which they're doing. as you mentioned, every year they won't be able to do it higher than the rate that inflation is rising. and if they do raise their prices more than inflation is rising, they have to pay a medicare, a rebate. sir, we are working on that,

but it kind of just really comes down to the american value system, which is the rug and interval, individualistic competitive atmosphere where people are trying to maximize profit. and so unless we take action is going to continue to get worse and worse every year, there's no reason for them to stop. and once we stop them, which is why we're like organizing. people directly impact people who have these health care stories. and we got some big victories recently, but a lot of those victories aren't going to take effect for a couple of years to have to keep at it. but as under the status quo, there's no reason for not to just continue to maximize their profit. so we're going to see that trying to continue unless we stop it. and now big pharma has always been an industry riddled with scandal, with the latest being the part they played in the opium crisis. so are there any restrictions placed on big pharma about how they market their products and negotiate kickbacks with doctors? the short answer is not really like not restrictions. we have like the f. d. a

cannot limit the amount of money that companies are spending on, on advertising, and they can't really ban advertising for drugs that have serious health risks to us. so as a result of that, you get this like huge, sprawling, multi $1000000000.00 advertising industry around health care, right. and in the same way that coca cola wants us to drink their soda and the nfl wants us to watch their football games on sundays. these companies want us to use their drugs and it doesn't particularly matter to them if there's a cheaper drug or a drug safer or drug that works better for us. they just want us to consume their product and it's just, you know, that business model to maximize profit. and that's not how a health care should be. running health care should be run by doctors interacting with their patients and acting the best interests of those patients. that's not really what it is, and i think i remember correctly. it's america new zealand, maybe a few other countries. but other than that, no one else is allowed to market these drugs directly to consumers. but in america you can because it's all deregulated. and yeah,

but also drives the cost is just the business model, this huge industry to create these ads. and i don't think, you know, advertisers and people working in social media accounts for the drug companies should be deciding what's best for my health care. my family's health care, my friends, health care or anyone my can be in my, anyone in my community. but that's what's happening right now. and i think you also asked about these companies simply enforcing doctors decisions and that's happening . also. there isn't really anything to stop these companies from sending money in terms of gifts, perks trips to doctors, to get them to prescribe certain drugs. and they're often driving the prescription of these huge brand name drugs. when there are generics available that are cheaper and the patient might not get that information. so yeah, pretty much at every, every level here have profit as a motivator, right? because you have these companies who are, you know,

assisting that we buy their drugs, you have insurance companies are trying to get out of it and only allow the care that's cheapest. you have doctors who are influenced by pharmaceutical companies. so like none of those motivators are health based, right, it's all just profit based, and that's pretty much at every level. and the result of this, the system we have right now. thank you so much, chris then for your insights. and when we come back, groups like doctors without borders are asking government to relo patton's granted to pharmaceutical companies, especially in africa. our patents, the problem is to access affordable vaccines and medication, or i'll have more after the break. ah, ah ah ah, in east to come to the russians state little never.

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the largest island in the archipelago, is now the location of a very large u. s. military base. you could go the med div i to the u. s. government to make a military base and just deported or douglas and people from their country. so they called return back a d i live, i am quite real fighting for the right. so i, we do not consider the right to self determination actually applies to the trickle . since i don't the question of self determination, the legal advice we have received is actually the chickens. we're not and are not a people for me, it's time to move on and see what we can do. a full, the congress said committee to return back home. there is no support from the nomination. i commission african united miss. i don't care about chug or send people in i'm rick

sanchez and i'm here to play with you. whatever you do, you do not watch my new show. seriously. why watch something that's so different. my little opinions that you won't get anywhere else, work of it please. if you have the state department, the cia weapons makers, multi $1000000000.00 corporations, choose your fax for you. go ahead, change and whatever you do. don't watch my show stay mainstream because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called direct impact, but again, you probably don't want to watch it because it might just change the way thank the. today, one 4th of the world's population like access to essential medicines, primarily in the poorest parts of africa and asia. because of this groups like doctors without borders in the people's health movement,

they're calling on the south african government to vote patents granted to pharmaceutical companies. eli lilly and madonna for its coven, 1900 medicine and the m. r. n. a vaccine. they argue that these patents will undermine people's access to life saving treatments and will prolong the pandemic for everyone. for example, treatments like barrister to know for coven 19 which generic manufacturers in india and bangladesh charge only $7.00 per 14 day treatment. but in south africa, the same treatment goes for $270.00 per 14 days. due to the past blocking the production of generics and south africa, global inequality and access to medicine has been shoved into the spotlight now with the cova pandemic, south africa is looking to push pat reform laws so that patents no longer block generic producers from entering the market to produce and supply more affordable medical tools. according to the f, b, a generic medications can cost on average 80 to 85 percent less than the brand name

equivalence. india has emerge as a global leader in producing pharmaceuticals, although it's still relies heavily on china for the active pharmaceutical ingredients. and now to dive deeper on this issue, let's bring in the ne christian national field organizer of the center for popular democracy. so chris then patton's, obviously play a very important role in the pharma industry. how long do these patents typically last before generic can start producing lower cost bio similar? well that, that's, that's actually something we're working on right now. we're a part of this campaign called make medicines affordable, and we don't want to wait for congressional action on this issue. we want president biden to actually use executive power to lift patents. he has brought authority to lift patents on pretty much anything, not just in health care realm, but pretty much on any kind of product. and we're hoping that he will lift patterns

on certain drugs and allow for the generic production of those drugs. and we're, we did or inaction outside the building and d. c recently where we had directly impacted people telling their stories and asking president biden, you know, like the installation reduction act was a huge victory. like thank you for doing you did get medicare, drug pricing, but we actually want you to use executive power to, to go much further analyst patents on those drugs. and in terms of the international scope of things. i think cobra again is a good example because pfizer and maternal own those patents on their vaccines. you have like countries all across the world who haven't even had gotten their 1st dose yet. meanwhile, here like restrictions are lifting and people are talking about a post coban era, which does not exist for very much still in this era. so again, like intellectual property rights should not stand in the way of public health and

all too often it does. so we're exploring mechanisms where we can lift those patents, both for patients here in america, but also in the global context. when we talk about global pandemic se, so there are obviously 2 sides to the argument. yes, medicines are expensive and the patterns make it inaccessible for many of the poor nations. but on the other hand, if it wasn't price high, then pharma companies wouldn't invest so heavily into r and d. so how do we solve this problem? i think oftentimes when you hear that argument, it's often coming in bad faith because a lot of times the research and development is driven by taxpayer money. and you think about mon turner so much of their resources come from the american government, which comes from taxpayers. and even in those instances when it's like us paying for the faxing and then we're facing all these barriers to actually accept that. so i think that's often the bad faith argument there certainly is truth to it and that we want people to continue to innovate and invest in research and development and

creating new medicines, acknowledges and vaccines. so i'm sure there are like, you know, regulations and compromises that we can implement there. but like we're so far outside the realm of any sort of reasonable discussion. i mean, you know how to do that. because if people are acting in good faith or just driving up profits, that turn of billions and billions of dollars as you know, estimates very some folks are saying like, $6000000.00 people have died globally as some books are saying. 15000000 have di globally because it's such an under count. so i think we're like, we're far away from a good discussion, how to balance innovation. and you know what's good for the public because that's, it's not really in their interests right now. and now all of this revolves around having new policy in place to rein bag drug makers. but is that really possible when big pharma is so influential with its donations and lobbyists, that it basically has he policy makers in his back pocket to protect the industry?

that's a great question, that's something i wrestle with all the time. i think everyone working in public health, we wrestle with that, whether it's actually possible to change the system. i like to believe that it is, i think if we're, you know, seeking these like minor tweaks here, or there are these minor forms here, or there. that's not really going to get the job done. and sometimes those, my reforms actually for their, legitimize the system that is illegitimate. so i'm pushing for something far more radical, southern part of our transformative. we should be universal health care in this country, like we believe that the senate republic, democracy and our affiliates and allies certainly believes that health care is the human rights. and patents shouldn't stand in the way of health care profit. and then in the way of health care, which is nice to say, but how do you actually get to there? which is i think the root every question. and we're figuring it out like we believe that its people who have the power and there are many ways that we can flex the power. if you think about, you know,

if we could decouple health care from employment, then that would give strength to the labor movement because then people would be able to, like engage in strikes and slow down. so that worrying, i'm going to lose their insurance. right. and then if be flex, capitalists, flex our capital power against the capitalists with concrete demands like who knows what we can accomplish. so we're organizing people who are like, directly impacted bringing them to their legislators over and over again. and we found over time, if you do that through just like conversations and burg, dogging and lobby visits and protests like you definitely can enact terrific and changed. i'm give you an example. like if you remember 2017, the republicans were trying to repeal the affordable care act. and this was like early on in the trans shame. and we were told like, well, there's no way you're going to stop this. there is no way going to get there for 8 years and still have the affordable care act. and so we brought people, you know, just people from across the country who were directly impacts that we sent them to town halls to tell health care stories. we brought them to

d. c. i mean cation civil disobedience in the senate offices and the people with disabilities. people with illnesses, just telling her story is using people power. and we convince 3 republican senators to vote, to protect the sd. and you would think that would be like nearly impossible to do you think these are people who wouldn't wanna do that, but we were able to do that and that was the height of the trump era. so i'm encouraged by that. i think it's possible. i just think we need to amass that people power. i think lots of people, you know, wants to change these things, but don't feel like they have agency. so i think it's, my job isn't organizer to convince them that they do and actually organize them, mobilize them. so i think that's the way to do it and empower people to actually make that change. and how can countries in africa, expand manufacturing capacity for generic drugs? yeah, that's a great question. i think a lot of that is the same kind of, you know, people power centered organizing, discussed earlier. but

a lot of the inch in terms of international scope, a lot of it goes the world trade organization. and like we've been supporting what's called a trips waiver, which would temporarily wave electrical property rights on vaccines test and treatments and really get it out to the rest of the world. and that's part of like an international coalition of organizers. this does not just here, like i'm in new york, is folks around our country than folks you know, all across the world tour, pushing for that trips waiver. and there's a lot of international solidarity around that international organizing. and i'm going to think if we work, trust our borders and build our people power, we could do good work in a w t o we actually a lot of it does depend on kind of more powerful welfare in nations to play balls, so to speak. and we did get present bite to commit to waving that waiver, actually hasn't done it yet. but i think countries working together in those areas where they have influenced the w t o and really building power. there can be a way to do it. but again, it's, i'm in order for actually,

for that's actually happened. i think we will need that broad scale, like mass organizing on a level that maybe we haven't really seen before. because this isn't really the crisis we've ever seen before. and as bad as this particular crisis is, and i mean cobra to when i say that, like the climate crises to come will actually be worse and will be facing different and m x and healthcare challenges that were clearly not prepared for. so i do think these are not problems that can be solved in a single country or a single state or a single city. we're going to have to build broad international coalition coalition to organize properly on this. thank you so much, renee christian, for your time and insight. while the winner here is obviously big farm out, we have to talk about the losers who are really paying the price. while patents are necessary to protect a company's proprietary re search for a period of time. pharmaceutical companies have now gained the system to their advantage. drug makers are able to extend the patents on their drugs,

keeping generic off the market through a process known as ever greening. they do this by making small little adjustments to drugs, which then sustain their monopolies for several years. drug companies on average file more than a $140.00 patent applications per drug to extend their monopolies and prolong their profits while hiking up their prices. once a drug becomes familiar to people, while the practice of ever grinning isn't necessarily illegal, it is unethical and shows that the patent system is being manipulated to big farmers advantage. this cost citizens upwards of a $1000.00 annually on prescription medication. that would otherwise be a fraction if manufactured generically. so in the end, it is a poor nation and citizen that gets trapped in the cycle. poverty as a cost of medication remains inaccessible. i'm christy, i thanks for watching and we'll see you back here next time on the costs of everything. the

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