Practical Antitrust Action
November 1, 2017 3:16 PM Subscribe
Attorneys general from 46 states and the District of Columbia have filed an antitrust complaint against the $75 billion generic drug sector of the pharmaceutical industry to include 18 companies and at least 15 drugs. The 230-page consolidated brief is here for your reference in case you come across news purporting to summarize the merits or conflate them with any virtuous cause of action to "break-up" Amazon, Twitter, Google, Facebook, or other forms of "prescription benefit management" (PBM).
Further References: You may familiarize yourself with fundamental tests of competitive market conditions that bear on illegal Single Firm monopoly and illegal Conduct of Collusion by multiple firms. Under certain conditions monopoly and "price-fixing", for example, may be sanctioned by US gov.
Further References: You may familiarize yourself with fundamental tests of competitive market conditions that bear on illegal Single Firm monopoly and illegal Conduct of Collusion by multiple firms. Under certain conditions monopoly and "price-fixing", for example, may be sanctioned by US gov.
(Ah...Martin Shkreli...that's the bag-o-dicks I was trying to think of. He's gotta be involved in this, right? Hopefully they saved some space on the wall to nail him to.)
posted by sexyrobot at 4:09 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by sexyrobot at 4:09 PM on November 1, 2017
Puerto Rico is also involved. In case anyone else was wondering, it looks like the five states not involved are Georgia, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.
posted by reductiondesign at 4:34 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by reductiondesign at 4:34 PM on November 1, 2017
If it has to do with looking the other way while people are being dicked, you can bet that Texas will be at the front of the line...
posted by jim in austin at 4:43 PM on November 1, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 4:43 PM on November 1, 2017 [9 favorites]
Does this have anything to do with whats-his-shitstain who bought up all those drug manufacturers then jacked up prices like %8000? I'm guessing there's some Venn diagram overlap at the very least.
His companies, Retrophin and Turing, aren't named, but he's in jail anyway for securities fraud and managed to get his bail revoked because of some inane stunt where he tried to get a strand of Hilary Clinton's hair, so he's sitting in a cell until January at the very least, and then for however long he gets at sentencing. There's a little bit of debate about how much he'll get since the total amount of the fraud he was convicted for isn't that much, but being one of the most abrasive and assholish people in human history might just get the book thrown at him.
They did include Mylan, who have been taking a bunch of heat for charging $600 for EpiPens that used to cost $50 and have a manufacturing cost somewhere around $10 per package.
posted by Copronymus at 4:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
His companies, Retrophin and Turing, aren't named, but he's in jail anyway for securities fraud and managed to get his bail revoked because of some inane stunt where he tried to get a strand of Hilary Clinton's hair, so he's sitting in a cell until January at the very least, and then for however long he gets at sentencing. There's a little bit of debate about how much he'll get since the total amount of the fraud he was convicted for isn't that much, but being one of the most abrasive and assholish people in human history might just get the book thrown at him.
They did include Mylan, who have been taking a bunch of heat for charging $600 for EpiPens that used to cost $50 and have a manufacturing cost somewhere around $10 per package.
posted by Copronymus at 4:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [5 favorites]
The 230-page consolidated brief is here for your reference in case you come across news purporting to summarize the merits or conflate them with any virtuous cause of action to "break-up" Amazon, Twitter, Google, Facebook, or other forms of "prescription benefit management" (PBM).
I think I know what you meant, but I would just like to enjoy the idea of Google and Facebook being dragged into court and split up because they constitute "prescription benefit management" services.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:20 PM on November 1, 2017
I think I know what you meant, but I would just like to enjoy the idea of Google and Facebook being dragged into court and split up because they constitute "prescription benefit management" services.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:20 PM on November 1, 2017
There must be a technical detail that's keeping RI out, Peter Kilmartin is a D and generally on the side of the saints.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:29 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:29 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Rhode Island is a notorious tax haven. That's my guess.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:45 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:45 PM on November 1, 2017
Er, that was corporate haven, I was meaning to type. Don't know if taxes are the reason, or if it's just corporation friendly for other reasons.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:49 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:49 PM on November 1, 2017
Although at the risk of spamming the thread, a quick look around online doesn't give me any reason to know why I'd have come to that conclusion. In short—disregard me!
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:51 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 5:51 PM on November 1, 2017
You might have been thinking of Delaware?
posted by tobascodagama at 6:07 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 6:07 PM on November 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
From the article: The consolidated amended complaint unveiled Tuesday also takes the unprecedented step of going after senior executives at two generic drug companies. Mylan President Rajiv Malik and Emcure Pharmaceuticals CEO Satish Mehta are both named as defendants to the 243-page complaint
If the company name sounds familiar, Mylan caught flack last year for the high price of its Epi-Pen.
posted by nicebookrack at 6:17 PM on November 1, 2017
If the company name sounds familiar, Mylan caught flack last year for the high price of its Epi-Pen.
posted by nicebookrack at 6:17 PM on November 1, 2017
Mmm, just gonna let myself bask in the warm glow of trust busting for a bit. Antitrust action really needs to be a big part of future Dem platforms, it feels good and it's good for you!
posted by jason_steakums at 6:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by jason_steakums at 6:47 PM on November 1, 2017 [8 favorites]
Yes, we need to immediately go after the most abusive monopolies and oligopolies. The problem is that there are many companies that are way too big but aren't being blatantly abusive most of the time. We need to figure out how to break them up, but in an orderly fashion. Problem is that even if we go slow, the market will grumble loudly from beginning to end and if we do it all at once it will squeal like a stuck pig and tumble quickly, irrational as it may be.
It's actually both. If I hold shares in a company being broken up, that's bad for me in the short term since multiple competitors won't have the same economies of scale and may well find their price levels eroding. But in the long term, the entire economy grows faster thanks to increased innovation and an overall healthier economy in the long run. It is possible to go too far in the direction of deconsolidation, but when there are fewer than 4 or 5 competitors in a large market, you can be nearly certain some level of abuse is taking place and that breakups are needed.
You don't make billionaires out of people running mature companies by not merging, so it looks good in the short run and is very much to the direct benefit of executives and institutional shareholders. It's a false dawn, though, and leads directly into economic stagnation after the inevitable correction.
Maybe someday we'll all be on the side of the biggest possible pie divided in the fairest possible way. For now, we're giving most people whipped cream or burnt crumbs and pretending they're getting part of a bigger pie.
posted by wierdo at 9:53 PM on November 1, 2017 [6 favorites]
It's actually both. If I hold shares in a company being broken up, that's bad for me in the short term since multiple competitors won't have the same economies of scale and may well find their price levels eroding. But in the long term, the entire economy grows faster thanks to increased innovation and an overall healthier economy in the long run. It is possible to go too far in the direction of deconsolidation, but when there are fewer than 4 or 5 competitors in a large market, you can be nearly certain some level of abuse is taking place and that breakups are needed.
You don't make billionaires out of people running mature companies by not merging, so it looks good in the short run and is very much to the direct benefit of executives and institutional shareholders. It's a false dawn, though, and leads directly into economic stagnation after the inevitable correction.
Maybe someday we'll all be on the side of the biggest possible pie divided in the fairest possible way. For now, we're giving most people whipped cream or burnt crumbs and pretending they're getting part of a bigger pie.
posted by wierdo at 9:53 PM on November 1, 2017 [6 favorites]
yes, I'm partly kidding about the PBM line of business on account of the senate circus this week.
posted by marycatherine at 10:26 PM on November 1, 2017
posted by marycatherine at 10:26 PM on November 1, 2017
A false dawn...of whipped cream and burnt crumbs
Anew, I am reminded why my love for words, food, and Brittany intersect.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 11:26 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Anew, I am reminded why my love for words, food, and Brittany intersect.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 11:26 PM on November 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
What I hadn't seen reported -- back in March the House passed a bipartisan bill which removes the 70-year-old antitrust exemption for health insurers. It's currently stalled in the Senate.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:36 AM on November 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:36 AM on November 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
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posted by sexyrobot at 3:44 PM on November 1, 2017 [1 favorite]