Pharma Should Keep Its Books Closed, Says Rich Meyer
The idea that pharma should have to “open their books” is shortsighted. Pharma companies, like most companies, are public companies and as much as we don’t like it have shareholders who expect a return on their investment.
OK. I get it. Prices for prescription drugs are ridiculously high and in most cases unjustifiable. Patients, consumers and politicians are angry and they want to point fingers, but in an era when anger is at a high point we have to remember that we are a capitalist economy. Pay for profit health is the law if the land for most healthcare industries and CEO’s, who want their golden parachutes, want high drug prices to validate their enormous salaries.
I’m not happy with high drug costs, but asking pharma to open the books is not the answer. Everytime a new drug gets priced in the stratosphere, it moves voters and politicians closer to moving to a single payer system which is pharma’s worst nightmare.
Shkreli is the only pharma CEO (except perhaps for the CEO of Pfizer) who told it like it is: "My investors expect me to maximize profits"; http://sco.lt/5yXsfJ
Most other pharma CEOs try to weasel out of it by saying the high cost of R&D/innovation is the reason why drug prices are so high. To that argument, it is legitimate to demand proof other than the guesstimates from Tufts, which can't be independently verified because no one else has access to the books.
Also read "Obama Wants #Pharma to Open Its Books to Justify High Drug Prices"; http://sco.lt/4qFClN