Comment by girvo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by girvo | Hacker News Reader

I'm sort of conflicted. I feel that the profits that the pharmaceutical companies receive from first world developed countries coupled with the strong IP protection they enjoy here should be good enough, and I'm happy those in other countries receive the care they need. But then, China, India, they have a lot of very rich people too, so to pull it off in a way that to a first approximation makes sense, means some odd regulation and making it harder for people to get it in general without going through hoops. I don't know... Drugs are such a weird thing to think about: we're talking about peoples lives here, and as far as I'm concerned human life is the most important thing in the world, and profiteering from that in the way that pharma companies do sometimes (ever greening, and the like) is unethical in my opinion, the research that they conduct creates a lot of value. Truly, I don't know the correct way of thinking about pharmaceutical companies and business. Hard topic.

I don't think it's just to lump pharm behaviors under profiteering. Certainly some goes on, but that they can charge a high price is the reason some of these revolutionary medicines were developed in the first place. If R&D doesn't pay itself back, companies won't do it, and humanity is the poorer for it. Any sort of two tiered approach encourages people to cheat the system. I agree it's a tough problem, and we probably haven't found the optimal balance.

Perhaps we could step up government funded drug research, and the government could license it to every drug company? We all benefit from curing these chronic diseases, and the current model isn't exactly a model of efficiency.

government = corrupt body = money sink

To clarify, I was saying that the US govt. should play a bigger role in drug R&D, not the Indian govt (though maybe they should too).

US government research money largely goes to research scientists at universities in the form of research grants, so it's not really the government performing the research and spending the money. I wouldn't say the university research departments are money corrupt money sinks.

They could also license the fruits of the research to drug companies in other countries for a nominal fee (or free) as a form of humanitarian aid.

I guess you can safely ignore my comment then :)

"If R&D doesn't pay itself back, companies won't do it, and humanity is the poorer for it."

There's also the option of public research.

See, yeah, I totally get that. But, these are peoples lives were talking about, and considering marketing is 20x what is spent on R&D... The system we have is the best we've got, I'll admit. I can't think of a better way personally, but that still sucks IMO :(

I see where you're coming from, but there are lots of things you could put in that category: food, water, warm clothes, energy for heating and cooking, etc etc. Should no-one working in any of these industries be entitled to no more than minimum wage? I think most people would say no, and I think most people would agree that the profit motive has made all of these industries more efficient, e.g. there were and are famines in countries where farmers can't make a profit, but very few in the West.

Why do companies have to pay for R&D? Other fields of science and medicine are paid for with grant money from the government. Let the government pay for pharma research and let a competitive market sell the products of that research without patents or other such nonsense.

I don't feel conflicted. Patent protection was established as a mechanism to encourage and facilitate innovation and to encourage inventers. The question I ask myself is whether the current system is sufficiently balanced. In my opinion, it is not. It is way too much in the favour of large pharma. A good way to check that it is, would be to examine the books of a pharma company and check what percentage of profit (not earnings) goes to R&D versus other areas like say marketing. This journal article suggests that marketing spending is 20 times higher than that on R&D. [1] http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4348 That causes me to be skeptical of pharmaceutical company claims that the generics industry is killing innovation. I've even heard a pharma marketeer use the term "Indian generics terrorism" which is exceedingly callous given that we're basically choosing to deny life to those individuals who can't afford big pharma marketed drugs. The patent system was not intended to be used to justify such behavior.

Why should they be spending all their profits on R&D and not marketing? Do you refuse to wear name-brand clothes because they spend 90% of their profits on marketing?

I just don't get the R&D vs Marketing hate.

Marketing was the example in the article. It is also one that catches my attention because I was aware of a case where my personal physician was pushing a particular drug and I was aware that pharma salesmen (marketeers) are permitted to encourage physicians to favor their products through controversial freebies like free trips to company seminars in the Bahamas, etc. I have no hate for marketing. If I had found a article contrasting how much is spent on legal versus R&D, I would have used that. And, by chance, yes, I do refuse to waste an extra dime on clothing just for a logo.

> yes, I do refuse to waste an extra dime on clothing just for a logo.

But I notice that you don't pass moral judgment on them for doing so.

We need to separate the (strong, IMO) argument against bad marketing, from the (weak, IMO) argument against the proportion of R&D vs Marketing spend.

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