NYT Thriving Black Market for a powerful Weight Loss Drug

Love how these articles barely give a one sentence lip-service to the elephant in the room: WHY people turn to grey instead of big pharma. Access and affordability get nary a mention, let's instead look at the big scary Underworld, ohhhhh.
 
spanky2026 said:


Love how these articles barely give a one sentence lip-service to the elephant in the room: WHY people turn to grey instead of big pharma. Access and affordability get nary a mention, let's instead look at the big scary Underworld, ohhhhh.

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The article doesn’t touch on it, but the comments do.

“If health insurance didnt keep forcing people off these amazing meds or not allowing people to try them at all, maybe there wouldn't be so many who are so desperate that they feel they must turn to compounding or the black market. And, this is not even counting all those who don't have health insurance at all. The man in the article, at 447 pounds, was clearly not being helped enough by his doctors or his insurance. What is someone like that man, supposed to do, then? Diets, calorie counting and exercise do not work for the severely overweight.”
 
CurlySlacker42 said:


but the comments do.

“If health insurance didnt keep forcing people off these amazing meds or not allowing people to try them at all

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Except that comment gets it completely wrong.

The insurance companies are right to not pay Big Pharma <$1K per month per patient.

With 75% of US adults overweight or more, and a nice long guarantee period of exclusive sales, Big Pharma would have a massive windfall (covering all their R&D and FDA process by many many times) at a fraction of that pricing. And Big Insurance would surely approve nearly everyone, easily.
 
Good grief, they go through so much effort to distort everything using weasel words and loaded language. Starting right from the title "black market" when there is clearly a difference between grey market and black market. Ask anyone who imported a JDM Skyline, they'll explain it to you. "What they believe to be retatrutide" as if third party testing doesn't exist. Ms. Blum does her best to sound as alarming as possible.

The article gives Eli a voice too:

Eli Lilly has warned that products claiming to contain retatrutide may be contaminated or contain other substances entirely. “Any claim that black market retatrutide is the same as Lilly’s genuine medicine as studied in clinical trials is false,” Michael Jamison, a spokesman for the company, wrote.

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That's a wild claim in itself. Reta is a molecule. We know how it's shaped. There's only one shape. We can synthesize it, we can test it, and we can measure it. That's like Dasani claiming that no one can imitate their H2O molecule. Only Dasani sells genuine H2O. And of course, Ms. Blum doesn't give any pushback at all, giving them the last word in that section of the article.

Many of the people taking what they believe to be retatrutide buy it from online storefronts, which list the drug as a research chemical that is not for human use — a disclaimer that may let them take advantage of a loophole in drug regulation.

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Some loophole. Imagine applying this to anything else dangerous: "Gerber sells their knives as not for honor killings - a disclaimer that may let them take advantage of a loophole in knife regulation."

Can you see how closing this "loophole" would result in applying intent to people who have expressed none? This is called projection.

Reading further, it gets tiresome. Paragraphs spent explaining the value of FDA approval, warning of the consequences of violating their rules. Scare tactics are used with their verbose description of law enforcement activity. Scare tactics don't end there:

An F.D.A. database showed that 40 people have reported having adverse reactions to retatrutide since 2024, including cardiac issues, appendicitis and blurred vision. Of these patients, 14 were hospitalized, and four were described as having “life-threatening” responses.

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Even if this figure is true, that means reta has already saved more lives than it has ruined, and is a net gain. Notice they don't cite any deaths. They don't give ANY granular detail at all, because they know what happens if they dig into those 40 instances...

In the end, the author and her employer are shills. Dani Blum is an assistant editor at Forbes, and if you look at her journalistic history she mostly writes about nonsense.

The NYT is run by A. G. Sulzberger, whose sister, Gabrielle Sulzberger, is on the Eli Lilly board of directors. She also served on the boards of Mastercard and Whole Foods.

We are not dealing with honest people and I'm getting tired of everything being propaganda.
 
mybodyisasewer said:


Good grief, they go through so much effort to distort everything using weasel words and loaded language. Starting right from the title "black market" when there is clearly a difference between grey market and black market. Ask anyone who imported a JDM Skyline, they'll explain it to you. "What they believe to be retatrutide" as if third party testing doesn't exist. Ms. Blum does her best to sound as alarming as possible.

The article gives Eli a voice too:

That's a wild claim in itself. Reta is a molecule. We know how it's shaped. There's only one shape. We can synthesize it, we can test it, and we can measure it. That's like Dasani claiming that no one can imitate their H2O molecule. Only Dasani sells genuine H2O. And of course, Ms. Blum doesn't give any pushback at all, giving them the last word in that section of the article.

Some loophole. Imagine applying this to anything else dangerous: "Gerber sells their knives as not for honor killings - a disclaimer that may let them take advantage of a loophole in knife regulation."

Can you see how closing this "loophole" would result in applying intent to people who have expressed none? This is called projection.

Reading further, it gets tiresome. Paragraphs spent explaining the value of FDA approval, warning of the consequences of violating their rules. Scare tactics are used with their verbose description of law enforcement activity. Scare tactics don't end there:

Even if this figure is true, that means reta has already saved more lives than it has ruined, and is a net gain. Notice they don't cite any deaths. They don't give ANY granular detail at all, because they know what happens if they dig into those 40 instances...

In the end, the author and her employer are shills. Dani Blum is an assistant editor at Forbes, and if you look at her journalistic history she mostly writes about nonsense.

The NYT is run by A. G. Sulzberger, whose sister, Gabrielle Sulzberger, is on the Eli Lilly board of directors. She also served on the boards of Mastercard and Whole Foods.

We are not dealing with honest people and I'm getting tired of everything being propaganda.

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Amen and amen, preach, brother!
 
indolent said:


Except that comment gets it completely wrong.

The insurance companies are right to not pay Big Pharma <$1K per month per patient.

With 75% of US adults overweight or more, and a nice long guarantee period of exclusive sales, Big Pharma would have a massive windfall (covering all their R&D and FDA process by many many times) at a fraction of that pricing. And Big Insurance would surely approve nearly everyone, easily.

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Good point. Do you think that these glp1s will ever become less expensive?
 
mybodyisasewer said:


Good grief, they go through so much effort to distort everything using weasel words and loaded language. Starting right from the title "black market" when there is clearly a difference between grey market and black market. Ask anyone who imported a JDM Skyline, they'll explain it to you. "What they believe to be retatrutide" as if third party testing doesn't exist. Ms. Blum does her best to sound as alarming as possible.

The article gives Eli a voice too:

That's a wild claim in itself. Reta is a molecule. We know how it's shaped. There's only one shape. We can synthesize it, we can test it, and we can measure it. That's like Dasani claiming that no one can imitate their H2O molecule. Only Dasani sells genuine H2O. And of course, Ms. Blum doesn't give any pushback at all, giving them the last word in that section of the article.

Some loophole. Imagine applying this to anything else dangerous: "Gerber sells their knives as not for honor killings - a disclaimer that may let them take advantage of a loophole in knife regulation."

Can you see how closing this "loophole" would result in applying intent to people who have expressed none? This is called projection.

Reading further, it gets tiresome. Paragraphs spent explaining the value of FDA approval, warning of the consequences of violating their rules. Scare tactics are used with their verbose description of law enforcement activity. Scare tactics don't end there:

Even if this figure is true, that means reta has already saved more lives than it has ruined, and is a net gain. Notice they don't cite any deaths. They don't give ANY granular detail at all, because they know what happens if they dig into those 40 instances...

In the end, the author and her employer are shills. Dani Blum is an assistant editor at Forbes, and if you look at her journalistic history she mostly writes about nonsense.

The NYT is run by A. G. Sulzberger, whose sister, Gabrielle Sulzberger, is on the Eli Lilly board of directors. She also served on the boards of Mastercard and Whole Foods.

We are not dealing with honest people and I'm getting tired of everything being propaganda.

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“Gabrielle Sulzberger, is on the Eli Lilly board of directors”

Conflict of Interest much?????
 
CurlySlacker42 said:


Good point. Do you think that these glp1s will ever become less expensive?

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They'll patent a different delivery system on the old one, and "discover" a reason why it's dangerous to use the old methods of delivery, so they'll be banned or at least discouraged.

Plus of course all the latest and greatest in the pipeline that make the old drugs undesirably obsolete (even if they still work well for many people). Even in the grey market today, semaglutide offerings have all but disappeared.
 
indolent said:


They'll patent a different delivery system on the old one, and "discover" a reason why it's dangerous to use the old methods of delivery, so they'll be banned or at least discouraged.

Plus of course all the latest and greatest in the pipeline that make the old drugs undesirably obsolete (even if they still work well for many people). Even in the grey market today, semaglutide offerings have all but disappeared.

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Semaglutide gave me some nasty GI side effects, while Tirzepatide has been very mild with the sides. I think a lot of other people had a similar experience.
 
spanky2026 said:


Love how these articles barely give a one sentence lip-service to the elephant in the room: WHY people turn to grey instead of big pharma. Access and affordability get nary a mention, let's instead look at the big scary Underworld, ohhhhh.

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Public sentiment towards insurance companies is at a generational high, i know they love to lobby but I get the sense that reform around this is going to become a legitimate election issue soon, and the votes available by promoting reform around insurance are going to cause some change in the sector maybe not HUGE change but significant, of course it will take time.

I also believe that pharma is going to be lobbying for this as well, right now the main thing holding Lilly and novo back from printing even more money is insurance companies refusing to cover these drugs, I know in interviews I've heard from the Lilly CEO that he realizes this and you can bet your ass they are writing checks to politicians to get something done, the ROI is just too high.
 
indolent said:


They'll patent a different delivery system on the old one, and "discover" a reason why it's dangerous to use the old methods of delivery, so they'll be banned or at least discouraged.

Plus of course all the latest and greatest in the pipeline that make the old drugs undesirably obsolete (even if they still work well for many people). Even in the grey market today, semaglutide offerings have all but disappeared.

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And even when a drug patent truly expires, there are other laws that protect the first generic manufacturer, which of course discourages other generic manufacturers from entering the market.

Cases in point. Sema came off patent this year in India. For years before, generic manufacturers in India were preparing themselves for the laspe of the patent and numerous generics launched day one of the patent’s expiration. The cost as far as I can tell is about $20-$30 for a month’s supply. NN filed various new patents and even sued generic manufacturer’s but none of that worked under India’s laws.

In the US, liraglutide (an inferior drug to even sema) came off patent in 2017. NN’s playbook that didn’t work in India worked in the US under our laws and NN was able to extend the patent until 2024. The price of generic victoza in the US today, two years later? $200-$300 a month. Forget about Saxenda, the weight loss version, they probably have years on that.

Nobody should hold their breaths for a generic glp-1 for any reasonable cash price. Ever.
 
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