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According to researchers at Liverpool University, the actual production costs of Sovaldi for the 12-week course is in the range $68-$136. Indeed, generic sofosbuvir is currently being marketed in India at $300 per treatment course, after India refused to grant Gilead a patent for the Indian market. In other words, the U.S. price-cost markup is roughly 1,000-to-1!

In Canada, it’s time we start betting on patients over pharma.

You want to look at companies that are primarily taking costs out of the system, payers rather than providers," he said. "Providers such as hospitals and other facilities aren't necessarily adding to the problem, but they are in the cost bucket that are trying to be taken out of the system in the U.S." Mitchell aims to build concentrated portfolios (35 to 45 names) of high-quality businesses that generate high returns on invested capital, strong recurring free cash flow, have a portfolio of irreplaceable assets, and finance their operations with low leverage.

Valuation itself is not a catalyst," he said. "It makes more sense to buy high-quality business that have generated strong returns historically, and offer enough return for the risk you're taking." For example, Mitchell only buys stocks that offer a total return of 15 per cent of more. Another holding, Medtronic PLC, a medical device company that typically grows its revenues between four and six per cent, appears to fit the bill.

Although its spine business is in a secular decline, the company is innovating and developing new therapies around catheters and drugcoated balloons. As a result, Mitchell expects it will grow its revenue at 10 per cent over the next three to five years. The company is also benefiting from a tax inversion following its purchase of U.K.-domiciled Covidien PLC, which freed up US$9 billion of cash that was outside the U.S. this past quarter. Medtronic thinks it can generate US$40 billion of free cash flow in the next five years, roughly half of which is set to be returned to investors in the form of dividend increases, share buybacks or special dividends.

They can allocate capital to other businesses and grow," Mitchell said. "It's also trading at a discount to its health-care peers, so it offers great upside." The portfolio manager also has a position in Novartis AG, which is still the largest pharma company in the world until the merger between Pfizer Inc. and Allergan PLV is complete. Like many names in the sector, Novartis faces pressure from generic drugs entering the market. That's the case with its cancer drug Gleevec. However,

Mitchell noted that Novartis has taken steps to replace its sales with another drug. But what's most compelling about this story is its pipeline of other drugs, including Entresto, which treats heart conditions and has shown strong efficacy and improvement versus existing drugs. Mitchell noted that it has "blockbuster" potential, with revenue potential of US$5 billion annually at peak. Similarly, Cosentyx, which treats severe cases of psoriasis that can cause arthritis, could be another big winner for Novartis. Mitchell also sees opportunity in Daimler AG, which is held in his global portfolios. While many people point to the auto industry as a sign of strength in the U.S. economy, Mitchell looked to Europe to find a German auto maker that has performed well.

He noted that China, a key market for many luxury auto makers, recently reduced taxes on small and mediumsized businesses, and Daimler has resolved a dispute it had with local dealerships there. "They've also put a number of their vehicles on a common platform with common parts, which brings down costs and boosts margins," Mitchell said. "With a better mix of highermargin, higher-value vehicles, I expect sales to pick up."

yler Anderson, National Post / Portfolio manager Dennis Mitchell sees a steady path to growth in biotech, pharma and other health-care stocks.

If it seems like Big Pharma has escaped accountability for its role in perpetuating the nation's deadly opioid epidemic, those suspicions are not unfounded. According to a former top Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official, the industry's influence over Congress has successfully quashed efforts to regulate the pharmaceutical drug market aiding an unprecedented addiction to legal drugs.

In the 1980s, Bayer sold Factor VIII concentrate, a blood-clotting medicine acquired from Cutter Laboratories in 1978. Though Factor VIII carried a high risk of transmitting AIDS and Bayer knew, Bayer continued to sell the drug in Asia and Latin America while selling a new, safer product in the West.

takeover would dilute Bayer’s core drug business currently flush with sales of its blood-thinner Xarelto and Eylea, a drug to treat blindness.

Coalition Against Bayer Dangers

Bayer, a history of unsafe drugs

Monsanto’s first entry into Big Pharma.

Blood clotting drug spread AIDS

all three proposed mergers face antitrust reviews by agencies in the U.S., Europe and China,

In Hong Kong and Taiwan alone, more than 100 hemophiliacs got H.I.V. and “many have since died,” reported the New York Times. 

Statin Baycol recalled

In 2001, Bayer withdrew its lucrative new statin drug Baycol because more than 50 people had died and more than six million patients were at risk from the deadly side effects of rapidly dissolving of muscle tissue.

Yaz birth control pill causes deaths

Xarelto, shady approval of a dangerous drug

underreported bright side: Industries that are doing well generally spin off; industries that are performing poorly generally merge and consolidate.

Millions Against Monsanto movement,

Not a chance, On October 14-16, merged or not with Bayer, the OCA and the global grassroots will expose Monsanto’s crimes against humanity and the environment at the Monsanto Tribunal, a citizens’ tribunal which will take place in The Hague, Netherlands.

An anti-pharma bias may be steering bright young doctors away from areas of medicine in need of innovation, worries Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Why is the media so keen on portraying Big Pharma critics as crazy, uneducated, unscientific and irresponsible people?

Dr Marcia Angell worked for over two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.  She was fired after criticizing the pharmaceutical industry, which had exerted an overriding and negative influence on the scientific literature. She said: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published.”

China has measles outbreaks but 99% are vaccinated

Mandatory Chickenpox Vaccination Increases Disease Rates, Study Shows

In a 2012 measles outbreak in Quebec (Canada) over half of the cases were in vaccinated teenagers

Seasonal Flu Shots still contain thimerosal.

Some Unwelcome Truths About Gardisil

prevent cancer of the cervix

Gardisil applies to only four of over a hundred known strains of HPV

No Guarantee of Vaccine Efficacy and Lots of Risks

nobody in America can sue vaccine companies

Kat Lanteigne, executive director for BloodWatch.org and writer of the play Tainted based on three-years of research about the tainted blood scandal, travelled to Alberta to help spread the message about concerns about private, donor-paid plasma collection. Lanteigne said these types of clinics had started to show up in Ontario in the last few years. "This is a big-pharma push," she said. "If they can build a clinic and get a licence from Health Canada then they can open without the province's permission." She said that the private sale and collection of blood and plasma introduces risk into the system. She also dispelled another myth that plasma is being imported into the country. She said that is not the case, as about 70 per cent of the drugs produced from plasma is what is being imported. When successful in the fight to get Ontario to legislate against private, donor-paid plasma collection at the end of 2014, and because Quebec has a similar law, Lanteigne said they made the mistake of thinking that because the largest provinces in Canada had done this, the rest of the provinces would follow suit.

Instead, as part of one of her first decisions, the new federal Liberal Health Minister approved CPR opening a clinic in Saskatchewan. Lanteigne says the Saskatchewan government, led by Premier Brad Wall, then approved the private, donor-paid plasma collection business to open in Saskatoon, "in between a pawn shop and a pay-day loan company." "This collection facility is a blood broker. They are literally a middle man Ñ a source to get profits. "We're asking the provinces and territories to pass voluntary blood donation acts which adds blood and plasma to their existing human tissue acts ..." Lanteigne explained. There is a lot of information on the BloodWatch.org website about the issue, including an informative timeline. The organization also has a Heart Watch rating system. Alberta currently has three hearts and Lanteigne would like to see that increase to five. "Saskatchewan has broken our hearts," she adds.

Kim Storebo, CUPE Local 46 president who works with Canadian Blood Services (CBS), also spoke at the event. She said CUPE supports a public, voluntary-based blood system in Canada, adding CBS needs to increase the number of its own plasma collection sites. The organization has been slowly closing locations since 2012. "There is no evidence the collection of plasma from paid donors will create self-sufficiency," she said. "Under no circumstances should there be payment of blood plasma donors with cash or cash-in-kind equivalents." The union wants to see blood and plasma collection remain the sole responsibility of Canadian Blood Services and for the organization to expand its plasma collection and its work hours and ensure stable and consistent hours for its employees. As part of the wrap-up of the Alberta tour officials with FOM, BloodWatch.org and CUPE presented an online SumOfUs petition with more than 15,000 signatures to provincial health minister Sarah Hoffman asking for all provincial governments to "implement legislation that ensures no for-profit, donor-paid blood plasma collection clinics are allowed to operate in Canada." Azocar assured those at the meetings that Friends of Medicare would continue to lobby the Alberta government this fall and next spring during the Legislature sittings.