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> However, drugs can be very profitable, so you could just as easily say that all the countries share the cost of the research, and the US subsidizes the profit

> However, drugs can be very profitable, so you could just as easily say that all the countries share the cost of the research, and the US subsidizes the profits of the private companies. Sure, though only if you assume that the companies would pursue the same research and achieve the same results without a profit incentive. Except, we have pretty clear empirical evidence that that isn't the case. The overwhelming majority of both medical research spending and clinical medical discoveries come out of organizations that pursue a profit motive. That's true globally - it's true in the US, in Europe, and in China and India. And even then, you can't say that companies "share the cost of research equally", because there is literally no objective metric under which European countries pay an amount of research proportional to how much they consume. Even European pharmaceutical companies obtain the bulk of their research funds from the US market.

vilmosi 9y ago
>>> Even European pharmaceutical companies obtain the bulk of their research funds from the US market. Stop spreading nonsense. This is easily verifiable information and very easy to disprove. Take Norvatis for example: https://www.statista.com/statistics/294631/novartis-revenue-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/294631/novartis-revenue-... The US is definitely not the "bulk" of revenue for these companies. A big market? Sure. But nothing special when compared to other rich countries if you take into account population and wealth.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > if you take into account population and wealth. Yes, if we normalize by the things we're measuring, we reduce the observed effect... but that's a statistical tautology. For example, take Western European country prices as a reference point, and assume that the difference in price to the US is entirely an excess premium. That's already a dramatic overestimate, because it assumes that the prices in Europe would still be as low even without the US market, which we already know is not the case. In that case, Norvartis earned $8.6 billion from inflated prices in the US in 2015. And in 2015, their entire R&D budget was $9.9 billion, on a net income of $6.7 billion. In other words, if US prices were magically brought down to European levels, Novartis would somehow have to find another way to make up a sum of money that accounts for almost their entire R&D budget. And even if you assume that the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world would operate the exact same way without an explicit profit motive, without the inflated prices in the US, they would literally be losing money. > Stop spreading nonsense. From the Hacker New Guidelines: > Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Come on dude. "Stop spreading nonsense" reads pretty tame to me. Certainly nothing worth subjecting us to a scripture quotation.

vilmosi 9y ago

>>> Even European pharmaceutical companies obtain the bulk of their research funds from the US market. Stop spreading nonsense. This is easily verifiable information and very easy to disprove. Take Norvatis for example: https://www.statista.com/statistics/294631/novartis-revenue-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/294631/novartis-revenue-... The US is definitely not the "bulk" of revenue for these companies. A big market? Sure. But nothing special when compared to other rich countries if you take into account population and wealth.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> if you take into account population and wealth. Yes, if we normalize by the things we're measuring, we reduce the observed effect... but that's a statistical tautology. For example, take Western European country prices as a reference point, and assume that the difference in price to the US is entirely an excess premium. That's already a dramatic overestimate, because it assumes that the prices in Europe would still be as low even without the US market, which we already know is not the case. In that case, Norvartis earned $8.6 billion from inflated prices in the US in 2015. And in 2015, their entire R&D budget was $9.9 billion, on a net income of $6.7 billion. In other words, if US prices were magically brought down to European levels, Novartis would somehow have to find another way to make up a sum of money that accounts for almost their entire R&D budget. And even if you assume that the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world would operate the exact same way without an explicit profit motive, without the inflated prices in the US, they would literally be losing money. > Stop spreading nonsense. From the Hacker New Guidelines: > Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Come on dude. "Stop spreading nonsense" reads pretty tame to me. Certainly nothing worth subjecting us to a scripture quotation.