5 ms·

It should be pretty obvious by now that the pharma sector is completely out of control. Again and again I read about the rising cost of healthcare, how we can't

It should be pretty obvious by now that the pharma sector is completely out of control. Again and again I read about the rising cost of healthcare, how we can't afford to support an aging society, and now even "solved" problems are used to squeeze even more profits from those who can afford the least. And I'm not talking about the US, this is a world wide problem. Instead of making international treaties that make enforcing medical patents even easier, we should be talking about making the medicines we have more accessible. I don't want to live in a world were only a fortunate elite has access to modern treatments, but it looks like that's the way we're going.

DanBC 11y ago
pyrimethamine (the generic name) is listed several times in WHO's list of essential medicines. http://www.who.int/selection_medicines/committees/expert/20/EML_2015_FINAL_amended_AUG2015.pdf?ua=1 http://www.who.int/selection_medicines/committees/expert/20/... It's not a huge list of medicine. It would seem to be reasonable to allow people to make and sell the meds on this list for profit, without allowing them to engage in the scumbag behaviour submitted article talks about.
mtgx 11y ago
Yet people are still quick to say "...but what about Big Pharma?" when there's a discussion about abolishing patents. I don't know if patents should be abolished completely, but if there's a discussion about a serious patent reform, we should stop considering pharmaceuticals as some kind of exception, and apply the new reform equally to everyone, instead of allowing exceptions for Big Pharma, or worse, watering down reforms to protect Big Pharma.
- mvanvoorden 11y ago
  Exactly. I don't understand why everybody's so afraid that without patents no medicine would be made anymore. On the contrary, it would force companies to work together and share the R&D, and would prevent the current inefficiency of multiple companies inventing the same wheel, doing the same studies, just because they all want to invent this medicine first. Even better: with all the money that would be saved from not having all the bureaucracy around patents, governments could even set up their own research facilities and share all their findings with the public, making affordable and better medicine available for all mankind.
  - Bluestrike2 11y ago
    That's a bit of a fantasy, isn't it? Pharma companies don't re-invent the same wheel: even in cases where they're pursuing similar avenues of research, the drugs being developed share sometimes significant differences (and in many cases, even insignificant differences can later be found to be more significant than first believed). Even if companies were somehow able to collaborate without any problem, the end result would be a decrease in the number of medications brought to market. Instead of multiple therapies that doctors can use to tailor to their individual patients, they'll get one that works for the majority of cases and woe be to anyone who falls outside the bell curve. The developing crisis with antibiotic-resistant strains is a perfect example of the sort of problems that arise from such short-sightedness. But that's a scenario based on your idea being feasible. The far more likely scenario is an even more brutal and unethical market, where companies use controlled distribution (such as with Daraprim) to prevent generics from being tested, and thus, being brought to market. Why? Because without patents, even that limited initial window for drug companies to earn back R&D costs--along with supporting the sunk R&D costs wrapped up in the larger number of drugs the fail to bring to market--exists only so long as the manufacturer is able to use whatever force is available to it it to stop generics from being produced. Far from cooperating with one another, pharmaceutical companies would have every additional incentive to stab each other in the back. Instead of skirmishes like you have now, you'd have a war to the knife. It's easy to look at problems with the current patent system and think that they'd all magically be fixed by getting rid of them. But unintended consequences are still consequences.
    - mvanvoorden 11y ago
      Every way of dealing with something has its flaws, the point is to fix them. The patent system is flawed in its foundation, i.e. claiming a discovery for yourself and keeping this technology away from the rest of humanity. For the rest, I wouldn't know why there wouldn't be multiple medicines. Labs would still come up with multiple compounds that have more or less the same result, and if not, research would continue for the people who fall outside the bell curve of the other medicine. The whole difference would be that instead of competition, there is cooperation, and the aim is not to make money or profit, but to help humanity. This is not unrealistic, it's basically what we (at least in NL) learn in primary school: "Two know more than one", "Many hands make light work", etc. It's only that the schools after that tell us to forget it all and teach us how we need to compete each other and especially to keep everything for ourselves and never do anything without expecting something in return. [quote]where companies use controlled distribution (such as with Daraprim) to prevent generics from being tested, and thus, being brought to market. [/quote] This wouldn't happen, as the resulting medicine IS the generic.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Patent reform is just going to be a way for those in power to promote regulatory capture. The only reform worth anything would be abolishment.
- nraynaud 11y ago
  plus big pharma doesn't do R&D: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ma-set-replace-rd-pharma-zach-stamp?trk=prof-post https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ma-set-replace-rd-pharma-zach...
  - jonlucc 11y ago
    Well, big pharma still does R&D, and they will continue to do so if they think they can keep producing drugs cheaper than an acquisition (which they are working toward).
- m_mueller 11y ago
  Your problem aren't patents. Pharmaceutical patents exist all over the world, including in countries with mandatory general public healthcare (i.e. pretty much all of the developed world except the US). The problem is the lack of oversight on prescribed medicine and medical services. Patents are a government mandated monopoly. That's fine, as long as government also mandates and/or negotiates prices as a condition bound to the patent. It seems so obvious, I kind of feel bad to spell out such a trivial interrelationship.
Gustomaximus 11y ago
It does look like we are entering an age of 'trickle down medicine'. Sad to see after such humanitarian improvements in the West post-WW2. Even Places with great universal healthcare like Australia and UK are increasingly looking to privatise. This blows my mind as we can look at the US to see where this direction will take the system.
shard972 11y ago
This is all due to IP laws, I really hope that countries like china and india stay strong on their position of "Fuck IP Laws".

DanBC 11y ago

pyrimethamine (the generic name) is listed several times in WHO's list of essential medicines. http://www.who.int/selection_medicines/committees/expert/20/EML_2015_FINAL_amended_AUG2015.pdf?ua=1 http://www.who.int/selection_medicines/committees/expert/20/... It's not a huge list of medicine. It would seem to be reasonable to allow people to make and sell the meds on this list for profit, without allowing them to engage in the scumbag behaviour submitted article talks about.

mtgx 11y ago

Yet people are still quick to say "...but what about Big Pharma?" when there's a discussion about abolishing patents. I don't know if patents should be abolished completely, but if there's a discussion about a serious patent reform, we should stop considering pharmaceuticals as some kind of exception, and apply the new reform equally to everyone, instead of allowing exceptions for Big Pharma, or worse, watering down reforms to protect Big Pharma.

mvanvoorden 11y ago
Exactly. I don't understand why everybody's so afraid that without patents no medicine would be made anymore. On the contrary, it would force companies to work together and share the R&D, and would prevent the current inefficiency of multiple companies inventing the same wheel, doing the same studies, just because they all want to invent this medicine first. Even better: with all the money that would be saved from not having all the bureaucracy around patents, governments could even set up their own research facilities and share all their findings with the public, making affordable and better medicine available for all mankind.
- Bluestrike2 11y ago
  That's a bit of a fantasy, isn't it? Pharma companies don't re-invent the same wheel: even in cases where they're pursuing similar avenues of research, the drugs being developed share sometimes significant differences (and in many cases, even insignificant differences can later be found to be more significant than first believed). Even if companies were somehow able to collaborate without any problem, the end result would be a decrease in the number of medications brought to market. Instead of multiple therapies that doctors can use to tailor to their individual patients, they'll get one that works for the majority of cases and woe be to anyone who falls outside the bell curve. The developing crisis with antibiotic-resistant strains is a perfect example of the sort of problems that arise from such short-sightedness. But that's a scenario based on your idea being feasible. The far more likely scenario is an even more brutal and unethical market, where companies use controlled distribution (such as with Daraprim) to prevent generics from being tested, and thus, being brought to market. Why? Because without patents, even that limited initial window for drug companies to earn back R&D costs--along with supporting the sunk R&D costs wrapped up in the larger number of drugs the fail to bring to market--exists only so long as the manufacturer is able to use whatever force is available to it it to stop generics from being produced. Far from cooperating with one another, pharmaceutical companies would have every additional incentive to stab each other in the back. Instead of skirmishes like you have now, you'd have a war to the knife. It's easy to look at problems with the current patent system and think that they'd all magically be fixed by getting rid of them. But unintended consequences are still consequences.
  - mvanvoorden 11y ago
    Every way of dealing with something has its flaws, the point is to fix them. The patent system is flawed in its foundation, i.e. claiming a discovery for yourself and keeping this technology away from the rest of humanity. For the rest, I wouldn't know why there wouldn't be multiple medicines. Labs would still come up with multiple compounds that have more or less the same result, and if not, research would continue for the people who fall outside the bell curve of the other medicine. The whole difference would be that instead of competition, there is cooperation, and the aim is not to make money or profit, but to help humanity. This is not unrealistic, it's basically what we (at least in NL) learn in primary school: "Two know more than one", "Many hands make light work", etc. It's only that the schools after that tell us to forget it all and teach us how we need to compete each other and especially to keep everything for ourselves and never do anything without expecting something in return. [quote]where companies use controlled distribution (such as with Daraprim) to prevent generics from being tested, and thus, being brought to market. [/quote] This wouldn't happen, as the resulting medicine IS the generic.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Patent reform is just going to be a way for those in power to promote regulatory capture. The only reform worth anything would be abolishment.
nraynaud 11y ago
plus big pharma doesn't do R&D: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ma-set-replace-rd-pharma-zach-stamp?trk=prof-post https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ma-set-replace-rd-pharma-zach...
- jonlucc 11y ago
  Well, big pharma still does R&D, and they will continue to do so if they think they can keep producing drugs cheaper than an acquisition (which they are working toward).
m_mueller 11y ago
Your problem aren't patents. Pharmaceutical patents exist all over the world, including in countries with mandatory general public healthcare (i.e. pretty much all of the developed world except the US). The problem is the lack of oversight on prescribed medicine and medical services. Patents are a government mandated monopoly. That's fine, as long as government also mandates and/or negotiates prices as a condition bound to the patent. It seems so obvious, I kind of feel bad to spell out such a trivial interrelationship.

Gustomaximus 11y ago

It does look like we are entering an age of 'trickle down medicine'. Sad to see after such humanitarian improvements in the West post-WW2. Even Places with great universal healthcare like Australia and UK are increasingly looking to privatise. This blows my mind as we can look at the US to see where this direction will take the system.

shard972 11y ago

This is all due to IP laws, I really hope that countries like china and india stay strong on their position of "Fuck IP Laws".