Pubdate: Sun, 03 May 2015 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 2015 Globe Newspaper Company Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340 Website: http://bostonglobe.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52 Author: Eric M. Van Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n229/a04.html LIFE-SAVING DRUG SHOULD NOT BE TANGLED IN THE TUG OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND Jeff Jacoby seems to suggest that pharmaceutical companies should be applauded for more than doubling the price of the life-saving anti-overdose drug naloxone in response to increased demand, thus ensuring that "inventories of the drugs aren't immediately depleted" (Opinion, April 26). As a result, he claims, "more lives are being saved." That's nonsense. A given supply of a drug ultimately saves the same number of lives whether it is disseminated all at once or rationed. Meanwhile, allowing the drug companies to raise prices as long as demand outstrips supply gives them a powerful incentive against rapidly increasing manufacture; they can maximize their profits by doing so slowly, thus keeping supplies low and prices high. If Attorney General Maura Healey succeeds in forcing lower prices, that can only increase the supply, and that would save lives. Further, it would seem to me that no medical institution could justify not buying such an important drug, regardless of price, but if they were forced to, it would likely be institutions in poorer communities that curtailed their orders. If the free market is doing anything here, then, it's not saving more lives; it's saving more lives of the affluent at the expense of the poor. Eric M. Van Watertown - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom