3 ms·

Entry costs, regulatory capture, intellectual property?

• bhupy 7y ago
  > Too much regulation is not responsible for high drug prices, deregulation is > regulatory capture, intellectual property Ostensibly would seem that relaxing regulation and (more importantly) abolishing or heavily weakening medical patents would help drive down costs. Can you imagine if tech companies could patent their products the same way medical companies do today? Uber would no longer have to worry about finding a moat, their moat would simply be their patent on "digital ride sharing provided by dynamic pricing to predict demand and position supply" (or some similar conceit). Smartphones would all be expensive and Apple would have a monopoly on multi-touch phones with capacitive displays and built-in app-stores. If food companies could patent food the same way drug companies can patent drugs that they prepare, bread would be expensive and you wouldn't have store brands and generics to keep the price of the fancy Whole Foods bread in check.