What We're Reading

The US pharmaceutical industry is on the brink of a new ecosystem — but it's not taking off as smoothly as expected.

Up until the past few years, biologic drugs made from living cells didn't face competition once they lost patent protection. That's been changing with the introduction of drugs called biosimilars. But their rollout hasn't exactly been the game-changing experience some had expected.

"We believe that biosimilars will capture meaningful market share, but the disappointing commercial success so far with less than $2 billion annual sales illustrates that the bar is high," Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report on Wednesday. That's in large part because of the economic challenges that biosimilars face, the report says. 

Biosimilars are a bit more complicated than your average competing medicine: Unlike generics for chemical-based drugs like antibiotics that can be interchangeable with branded versions, the copycats of biologic medications, produced using living cells, have a

"In an ideal world everyone would generate sufficient savings on their own to help fund their own retirement. However most of the data shows that Americans are simply unable to do this on their own. Nor is the current system of savings consisting of 401(k)s and IRAs doing the job either. The next few generations may now be facing increasingly difficult retirement scenarios. The question is whether instituting real changes now can help save future generations from a similar fate."  Read the full post @ Abnormal Returns

My knee-jerk reactions are several:

1. Tell this to a worker earning $7.50-10.00/hour paying $3.89/gallon for gasoline that he'll have no choice but contribute 9% pre-tax to a retirement account and the premise becomes something of an outrage.
2. I can see this already as yet another "account" which the US would borrow from a la Social Security (and still hasn't repaid).
3. It's yet another scheme to increase inflows into investment vehicles which obviously broker/de