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Comment by munk-a | Hacker News Reader

Only if we chose to let them bend us over said barrel?

The US government could simply seize the patent if Gilead acted in a manner against the public good.

The US government is not "we", even if we are in the US.

So the reward for spending millions on neglected tropical diseases is nothing. That's a great motivator for the company that cured HIV and Hep C to keep working.

And then what happens next time? Why spend all the time and effort, only to have what you did nationalized?

Incentivizing people to not do productive things like develop drugs seems like a really bad idea.

I used to agree with you. Then I realized that drug companies spend more on lawyers than scientists.

This isn’t even remotely close to true. 0.67% on legal[1] versus 17% on R&D[2].

[1] https://ccbjournal.com/articles/benchmark-metrics-pharma-com... [2] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060115/how-much-dru...

And how much on marketing?

You are right of course. My mistake. Marketing is where they spend their money!

Nobody’s saying Gilead can’t make a profit. Just that they can’t make an obscene (“have us over a barrel”) profit.

The post I was responding to had the strong implication of a Mafiosi stopping by a store and saying "Nice store you have here - it would be a shame if something happened to it". "You might want to consider our needs and sell us stuff at what we consider a good price".

That's how the USA behaves literally all the time with other countries and foreign companies. It seems like a weird time to choose to play nice for once?

My comment was specifically in regards to extortion, and you'd need the court of public opinion on your side to do it anyways. The US government still does use eminent domain to do stuff people don't want - see recent examples involving the Keystone XL pipeline and the border fence where everyone from native american tribesfolk to ranchers have had their property seized by the government against their wishes.

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