Avastin. I Think It's A Latin Word Meaning "I'm A Greedy Drug Company Shithead With A Small Penis"

Sigh.

Back in April I wrote a post about a story of greed that I said at the time I hoped would be impossible to top. I'm saddened but not terribly surprised that it took only 3 months for the evil bastards at Genentech to decide that $100,000 a year for a chance to survive cancer wasn't enough. From the UK Guardian we have this:

A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market.

Ophthalmologists around the world, on their own initiative, are injecting tiny quantities of a colon cancer drug called Avastin into the eyes of patients with wet macular degeneration, a common condition of older age that can lead to severely impaired eyesight and blindness. They report remarkable success at very low cost because one phial can be split and used for dozens of patients.

Here's a neat game. Find the words in that quote that send every drug company executive into an uncontrolled fit of rage. Hint; the words are "at very low cost." You could also get credit for "cheaply and effectively"

If nothing else, the scum that are responsible for meeting the quarterly profit projections at Big Pharma are people of action. Seeing the threat posed to public health by an $18 cure for blindness, they immediately moved to correct the situation:

Genentech, the company that invented Avastin, does not want it used in this way. Instead it is applying to license a fragment of Avastin, called Lucentis, which is packaged in the tiny quantities suitable for eyes at a higher cost. Speculation in the US suggests it could cost £1,000 per dose instead of less than £10. The company says Lucentis is specifically designed for eyes, with modifications over Avastin, and has been through 10 years of testing to prove it is safe.

Unless Avastin is approved in the UK by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) it will not be universally available within the NHS. But because Genentech declines to apply for a licence for this use of Avastin, Nice cannot consider it. In spite of the growing drugs bill of the NHS, it will appraise, and probably approve, Lucentis next year.

So, 100 times more for basically putting a drug you already make, have already done all the necessary research and development for and that you ALREADY CHARGE CANCER PATIENTS $100,000 A YEAR FOR, and putting it into little eyedropper vials.

Sigh.

You know, my momma raised me to think it was wrong to wish harm on another human being, but I seriously hope that Arthur Levinson, Chairman and CEO of Genentech, goes blind. Then gets cancer. Then dies because he takes the wrong pill because he couldn't see what he was doing. Then gets peed on by a dog. I'm not sure what the dog has to do with it, but I think you get my point.

Read the whole story here.