3 ms·

Because trade secrets are virtually impossible in non-biologic drugs, the entire funding ecosystem around pharmaceuticals is driven by patents.

• mayneack 9y ago
  5 minutes of googling suggests that Penicillin was not patented and the mass production was later patented by the USDA (not some private pharma company). The entire modern funding ecosystem being patent based just means it's the most profitable business model, not that it's the only way to produce pharmaceuticals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production https://patents.google.com/patent/US2442141 https://patents.google.com/patent/US2442141
  • jjeaff 9y ago
    Some drugs likely would be discovered through non profit efforts. But it seems reasonable to believe that we would be quite a bit farther behind overall without the profit motive.
  • ggg9990 9y ago
    Of course it’s not the only way to produce pharmaceuticals, as pharmaceuticals are thousands of years old. But without patents the number of new drugs pharmaceuticals over the last 50 years would be probably 1-5% of it actually was.
    • tobltobs 9y ago
      Maybe we would have less but better pharmaceuticals, because it would be easier to improve the existing ones.