https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/health/cancer-drug-shortage.html … We're running out of vincristine? WTF.
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In a normal industry, when a product is in very high demand but has low profit margins, you don't get shortages the way this article describes. We don't run out of milk or baking soda. Yet the pharma industry frequently runs out of low-margin basics. This isn't how markets work.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
One counterexample is surface mount capacitors: IIRC, there were three big companies making them, one decided to leave the market because the margins were too low, the other two are having trouble keeping with with demand.
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Replying to @is8ac
Are these technically challenging to make? Do they rely on a rare natural resource that only these companies have access to? (Sorry if these are basic questions, I don't know much about electronics)
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Manufacture in consistent quality appears to be technically complex and has big economies of scale. It doesn't look like the raw maternal for standard MLCCs are particularity rare. (People propose using Tantalum based capacitors as an alternative. https://passive-components.eu/the-basics-benefits-of-tantalum-ceramic-capacitors/ …)
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