The power of ‘big pharma’

I read Dr. Lybecker’s comment on “Canada’s Plan to lower drug costs” and concluded that her commentary was just typical self-serving BS from whiny American companies.

Big pharmaceutical companies are neither poor nor cash strapped. The top four pharmaceutical companies in the world (two being Swiss and two American) collectively are estimated to have more than $50 billion in net income in 2018 — that’s an annual number. Over 20 years (the life of a patent), the top four could have net income exceeding a trillion dollars. Lybecker’s assertion on relative pricing is based on work by the U.S. Department of Commerce, presumably reflecting industry’s view that only the U.S. market is open and free. In fact the U.S. market is not a free market; it’s an oligopoly where the pharmaceutical companies hold dominant market power. Indeed, American federal legislation, driven by industry lobbying, prohibits major buyers of drugs such as the Veterans Administration or medicare from even negotiating for a better price — they must accept the price dictated by the pharmaceutical companies. So let’s not hear surrogates for big pharma complain that Canada is unfairly treating American patients! The main reason Americans overpay for drugs is that their governments do not address the excessive oligopolistic power of “big pharma.”

Jim Martin, Stoney Creek