3 ms·

Not a fan of it either, but how do we incentivize companies to research and create new drugs if they can't make back the huge cost of clinical trials?

carbocation 8y ago
What if governments paid for the clinical trials?
- NikolaeVarius 8y ago
  The article has a section that talks about the difficulty of getting the drug even approved for testing by governments in the first place.
- sneak 8y ago
  The government is the whole reason the clinical trials are required before patients can be treated with a working drug. They are the cause of the problem, not the solution.
- longerthoughts 8y ago
  The government does frequently fund the discovery of new drugs. The problem is that the return on that investment is usually abysmal and the taxpayer ends up not only paying to fund the drug’s discovery, but also paying absurdly high prices to buy it from pharmaceutical companies who passed some or all of their risk onto taxpayers. One example: https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/YourMoney/story?id=129651 https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/YourMoney/story?id=129651
  - carbocation 8y ago
    Of course. Most of basic science in the US is government funded. I'm wondering what the OP thinks about removing the barrier that they identified (private corps paying for the trial vs gov paying for the trial) and how that would affect their thinking.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    If you read the article, the drug was in fact discovered at UBC, which is a publicly funded university. But it turns out that discovering the drug wasn't the expensive part. The expensive part was privately funded.
latch 8y ago
Did you read the article? The company that charged that absurd price acquired the patent, they had nothing to do with developing it.
- mabbo 8y ago
  While I don't disagree with your point, the company that bought the patent paid a lot of money for it from the company that developed it. Patents being exchangeable is not necessarily a bad thing.
miguelrochefort 8y ago
How do you incentivize environmental research? How are we supposed to find solutions to climate change if they can't be patented? Copyrights are just as bad as patents, and musicians/writers shouldn't make people pay for their music/books. We should start giving money to causes we support, whether it's art, medical research, software projects, etc. It's a mistake to think we should only give money if we're forced to by law (through pricing something that's not scarce).

carbocation 8y ago

What if governments paid for the clinical trials?

NikolaeVarius 8y ago
The article has a section that talks about the difficulty of getting the drug even approved for testing by governments in the first place.
sneak 8y ago
The government is the whole reason the clinical trials are required before patients can be treated with a working drug. They are the cause of the problem, not the solution.
longerthoughts 8y ago
The government does frequently fund the discovery of new drugs. The problem is that the return on that investment is usually abysmal and the taxpayer ends up not only paying to fund the drug’s discovery, but also paying absurdly high prices to buy it from pharmaceutical companies who passed some or all of their risk onto taxpayers. One example: https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/YourMoney/story?id=129651 https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/YourMoney/story?id=129651
- carbocation 8y ago
  Of course. Most of basic science in the US is government funded. I'm wondering what the OP thinks about removing the barrier that they identified (private corps paying for the trial vs gov paying for the trial) and how that would affect their thinking.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  If you read the article, the drug was in fact discovered at UBC, which is a publicly funded university. But it turns out that discovering the drug wasn't the expensive part. The expensive part was privately funded.

latch 8y ago

Did you read the article? The company that charged that absurd price acquired the patent, they had nothing to do with developing it.

mabbo 8y ago
While I don't disagree with your point, the company that bought the patent paid a lot of money for it from the company that developed it. Patents being exchangeable is not necessarily a bad thing.

miguelrochefort 8y ago

How do you incentivize environmental research? How are we supposed to find solutions to climate change if they can't be patented? Copyrights are just as bad as patents, and musicians/writers shouldn't make people pay for their music/books. We should start giving money to causes we support, whether it's art, medical research, software projects, etc. It's a mistake to think we should only give money if we're forced to by law (through pricing something that's not scarce).