Comment by ashray | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ashray | Hacker News Reader

I personally think that medicine IP should have some sort of limitation where discoveries in the pharma world cannot be profited from in perpetuity. Even generic drugs in the western world are VERY expensive. Most of them are simple compounds and the major justification of price is R&D.

Maybe a better solution would be to have differential pricing for different regions ? Like, Kindle Books are cheaper in India. Well, of course, there is the question of the radically poor who live on less than $1 a day. They wouldn't be able to buy a Kindle Book any more than they can buy a strip of aspirin.

However, there are so many levels of ethical implications involved in this kind of situation because we're talking about people's lives.

Maybe another idea could be to have a 5 year IP advantage and then make the medicines 'public domain' ? IP laws are based on profit incentives but when dealing with something with such huge humanitarian ramifications we should definitely take the time to re-evaluate our position on it.

Even people in the western world should have access to cheap medicines. What needs to be balanced is the innovation/profit incentive with the humanitarian aspect of it.

I have an even better idea: no pharma patents at all. Instead of relying on private R&D, rely on public funding -- just like we do in other fields of science. Let anyone produce the drugs discovered by that research and bring the focus of research back to drugs that work rather than drugs that are easy to profit from.

I like your idea and also the parallels that you're pointing out. I just can't see it making it through legislation through the pharma lobbies.

It's always tougher to implement these things after there are big players out there.

And your last point is something that touches me personally:

bring the focus of research back to drugs that work rather than drugs that are easy to profit from.

This is a massive problem worth discussing. I had a family member die of a disease which was incurable. One of the big pharma companies had prototypes of the next drug they wanted to bring to the market but their current drug (which didn't work..) hadn't 'run its course'. So they delayed the release of the new one for a few years.

In retrospect, it didn't matter because the new one didn't work either but this kind of practice is heinous on so many levels and must be stopped.

Kindle Books are cheaper in India? This is news to me. How cheap are they exactly?

50-70% on average, here's an article I wrote about it a few months ago, you can buy them from Amazon India regardless of where you live and your billing details: http://bkpk.me/tip-save-big-on-your-kindle-books/

That's awesome! But one question, couldn't the kindle book editions differ across countries in some cases? Just as, as for example, physical editions may differ between America and the UK?

I'm from India, and I use the American Kindle store as many books I want to buy are not even available in the Indian store. I haven't checked for a few months though, so things may have improved.

You can switch between them as and when you like. Every book I wanted so far was available on the Indian store. But if the book you want isn't there, you can switch your Kindle region and buy that. Then, later, when you want to get one that is available on the Indian store, you can switch back and get that at a cheaper price!

There may be differences in some cases, but usually western versions of print books tend to be better (color illustrations/pictures, etc.) to justify a higher price. That distinction doesn't really apply to digital books so for the most part, they're the same. (unless there are censorship/localization issues)

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