[quotemstr]

> I don't think he understands pricing at all. Market price isn't arrived at via a rational process. It's an inherently social process arrived at by negotiation between producers and consumers.

Are you suggesting that prices don't have anything to do with scarcity and are just set arbitrarily by social forces? That doesn't seem quite right.

[wpietri]

What would make you think negotiation is arbitrary? I my experience, it's all about specifics.

I don't see a reason to think true scarcity matters at all here. The hard part about generally isn't making doses 100 through infinity. The hard part is making the first dose, and to a lesser extent the next few. This is why drugs get special patent protection. That is, artificial, government-enforced scarcity.

[maxander]

Well, yes, that’s how supply and demand (supposedly) works. The “correct” price is where the demand, at that price, equals the available supply.

If the product is scarce, that can drive up the price, but only as far as demand is willing to follow- there’s no inherent value in being scarce. “Price” is a social thing, so of course it’s determibed by social forces.

[yholio]

To illustrate your point: if I paint an unique painting of myself sitting on the toilet, that's quite a scarce item, there is only one in the world, yet, it's utterly worthless.

Purely social forces somehow came to the (in my opinion, debatable) conclusion that ladies with square faces painted by Picasso are art, while a representation of defecation by me is not.

[kentosi]

Keep in mind the scarce few people that are actually affected by this disease. No doubt that this factored heavily into the high price.