Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmj42 | Hacker News Reader

> As a university, they have no business being in the medical products business.

Why? While this line of reasoning might carry some weight if Northwestern were a public university (though I'd still require some convincing), Northwestern is a private non-profit institution, with a highly ranked medical school and clinic.

Supplementing their income with drug sales instead of higher tuition seem like a perfectly logical thing to do.

View on HN

Because it's a waste. Pfizer has the comparative advantage in marketing drugs, and NWU in researching them. Econ 101: both parties are better off trading.

...and how does the patent help this? It sounds you had researchers paid on a grant, and a drug company that sold the fruits of that research. I am not seeing the case for a patent here at all.

Here is a case for patent: a third company snoops in, replicates drugs and sells for higher profit / lower cost since they haven't invested in R&D. Sounds unfair to me and such behavior should be prevented. Patents is one solution. Do you have a better one?

So let me see if I understand you correctly: grant money pays for the research, one company swoops in and markets the drug, then a third company swoops in and markets it, and you think that is a problem?

Yes, because the first "company that swooped in and marketed the drug" paid for the privilege.

How so? Grant money comes from the government, not some private company.

I think I understand what you're saying. Yes, I agree that research funded by the public should be freely available (definitely unpatentable, and maybe uncopyrightable too). I think this is a separate issue, though.

If Northwestern did the research with its own money (which does sometimes happen, I think), then it is good that Pfizer had to pay Northwestern for the research, because this funds more research. The patent is just the legal mechanism that makes Pfizer have to pay as opposed to getting the research for free.

Not necessarily. NWU is a private university, and in general plenty of private companies fund research.

In some cases, the government funding issue is relevant. Not in all cases.

Your dislike of patents does not make NWU a better venue for drug marketing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com