1 rupee is $0.015 not $0.0015 by nominal exchange rates. Sales tax must be included, as well as comparison with the lower nominal incomes in India rather than the global PPP standard that I gave. Other metformin manufacturers seem to generally charge more (https://www.medindia.net/drug-price/list.asp). Presumably they are not available in all locations; presumably there are areas where people simply don’t have easy access to buying these drugs at all. And we are just talking about India, the king of drug IP abuse. I bet if you look at Pakistan or Nigeria then it won’t be so easy to buy these drugs there.
I just don’t understand how it is possible to assume that even half of the people in the world will purchase and use the most effective product regardless of where they live. Have you tried to convince someone in this position to take any kind of supplements? Like, gone to someone who has very low income, and relies on bicycle or public transport, and explained to them why they should add this or that vitamin or OTC drug to their daily routine? If you had, I don’t think you would be making this assumption.
The problem of constant taking a medical drug is not related to metformin, but to any drug which a person has to take constantly, like hypertension drugs, antidepressant, vitamins etc. This is a different important problem which should be solved to improve public health. There is one possible solution in the form of app (already exist) which records what one has taken and remind to take the drug.
Well yeah, but if you want to calculate the expected value then you must go by what is likely to happen, not what you wish to happen.
Apps exist on smart phones, which lots of people don’t have, and most of the remainder won’t bother to install or pay attention to it. Moreover, apps don’t exist in every language.
1 rupee is $0.015 not $0.0015 by nominal exchange rates. Sales tax must be included, as well as comparison with the lower nominal incomes in India rather than the global PPP standard that I gave. Other metformin manufacturers seem to generally charge more (https://www.medindia.net/drug-price/list.asp). Presumably they are not available in all locations; presumably there are areas where people simply don’t have easy access to buying these drugs at all. And we are just talking about India, the king of drug IP abuse. I bet if you look at Pakistan or Nigeria then it won’t be so easy to buy these drugs there.
I just don’t understand how it is possible to assume that even half of the people in the world will purchase and use the most effective product regardless of where they live. Have you tried to convince someone in this position to take any kind of supplements? Like, gone to someone who has very low income, and relies on bicycle or public transport, and explained to them why they should add this or that vitamin or OTC drug to their daily routine? If you had, I don’t think you would be making this assumption.
Well yeah, but if you want to calculate the expected value then you must go by what is likely to happen, not what you wish to happen.
Apps exist on smart phones, which lots of people don’t have, and most of the remainder won’t bother to install or pay attention to it. Moreover, apps don’t exist in every language.
Yes, my typo but 0.015 is still around 2 cents as is said in the article.
About persuasion: it is a problem of marketing, which was successfully solved about vitamins.
The global market of vitamin C is around 1 bln USD, btw. https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/08/24/866422/0/en/Global-Ascorbic-Acid-Market-Poised-to-Surge-from-USD-820-4-Million-in-2015-to-USD-1083-8-Million-by-2021-MarketResearchStore-Com.html