Woah that's tiny.
Obviously, a certain premium is appropriate, to reflect all the value that isn't reflected in salary, like raising children, caring for elderly parents, chores around the house, voluntary work and so on. And there's no amount of money that will make a person whole again after, say, the loss of their spouse.
But if for statistical purposes we absolutely have to?
I'd say $7.5 million sounds pretty generous.
Are Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg, Buffett 1 000 000 times more valuable than other persons?
> Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying by 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as "one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million. This is what is meant by the "value of a statistical life.”
As to Bezos and Gates, fortunately the statistical value of a life only has to concern itself with the median person, not with outliers.
The part about the calculation the EPA uses is very relevant:
> Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying by 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as "one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million
The drugs company can sell their new wonder drug to the UK for 80k a year, or not at all. That's why these drugs are so much cheaper in the UK than in countries such as the US.
Well, sort of. The drugs come to us in the UK after the US customers have paid for the R&D. That's why they're cheaper; they're not being used to fund new drug discoveries.
E.g. You are deciding if you will spend 1 Billion to develop a drug with a 20% sucess rate. Europe sales are projected at 2 Billion, and US sales at 10 Billion.
It is US sales that make the expected value positive. If the US paid European rates, the product would not be developed.
The R&D funding came from the previous drug, not the current drug.
In practice, yes that is often the case, but it doesn't matter for the new drug development decision.
If a new drug is unprofitable, it doesnt matter if there are funds from a prior one. A company will invest it elsewhere instead of spending it on a revenue negative drug.
Similarly, If a new drug looks profitable but internal funds are scarce, the Company will secure funding or sell distribution rights to raise the funds.
The Key role that the US is currently playing to making drugs profitable to develop that otherwise would not be.
I have worked on several programs, and the question is always "what is the return on investment" and never "how much do we have in the bank".