4 ms·

Praise be to the corporations who were so margin-driven as to develop the cure I need, but can't afford. If only parma had some kind of inherent motivating fac

Praise be to the corporations who were so margin-driven as to develop the cure I need, but can't afford. If only parma had some kind of inherent motivating factor.

rayiner 7y ago
All R&D is the same, whether you’re building life saving drugs or web advertising platforms. You throw gobs of investor money at roomfuls of Stanford PHDs and progress comes out the other end. It’s the most effective engine for innovation humanity has ever conceived. The fact that life saving drugs are more important than web advertising platforms isn’t a reason to turn drug development into charity. It’s an even stronger reason not to fuck up the incentive structures.
- nabnob 7y ago
  But the people actually doing the research aren't the ones making a profit.
  - refurb 7y ago
    When I was working in Pharma, the PhDs in the lab were some of the highest paid PhDs in the US. They certainly share in the profit.
    - nabnob 7y ago
      Do you mean they held shares in the company, or that they made a high salary?
      - refurb 7y ago
        Both.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Many are. Just like in tech, much of the pharma pipeline is startups that are acquired by big cos. And, like in tech, lots of skilled technical workers who don’t become founders are making big salaries.
- AndrewOMartin 7y ago
  There's a happy medium between turning drug development into a charity and pushing the profit margins as far as they go. I'm just asking for recognition that although most people would pay an amount that would bankrupt them for a single dose of a lifesaving drug, doesn't mean that you should routinely charge that much. Profit margins work when it's consumer goods. For example: Scenario #1: Sell 10 TVs at $1,000 each. Profit=$10,000. Scenario #2: Sell 20 TVs at $100 each. Profit=$2,000. I don't care how many people have TVs, so I'm happy for you to choose scenario #1. However, if instead of TVs, it was a lifesaving drug, Scenario #1 is a huge tragedy, where 10 people die in the process. Repeat, there must be a happy medium between pure charity and price gouging.
  - bwaldrep 7y ago
    The issue with finding a "happy medium" in one segment of the market is that investment capital will immediately start to flow towards other segments of the market without such constraints. In your example where TVs are a lifesaving drug, you could argue that we should find a happy medium where TV manufacturers are only making 3-4k in profit. In the short term this would increase the accessibility of TVs, saving lives. In the long term this would cripple future investment in better TVs, reducing lives saved in the future. Investment is distributed in response to expectation of future returns. If you want more lifesaving drugs you should incentivize their creation, not penalize the field relative to less important pursuits. Some people will pursue medical research (or invest in it) for its own sake out of an admirable desire to help others. Many more will work for whoever will pay the most, or invest in whatever business has the most potential for profit. You don't have to admire those people, but it's not rational to actively push them away from fields where their work could benefit others.
    - AndrewOMartin 7y ago
      All I'm asking is for people to consider saving lives as having a non-zero value .

Praise be to the corporations who were so margin-driven as to develop the cure I need, but can't afford. If only parma had some kind of inherent motivating factor.

rayiner 7y ago

All R&D is the same, whether you’re building life saving drugs or web advertising platforms. You throw gobs of investor money at roomfuls of Stanford PHDs and progress comes out the other end. It’s the most effective engine for innovation humanity has ever conceived. The fact that life saving drugs are more important than web advertising platforms isn’t a reason to turn drug development into charity. It’s an even stronger reason not to fuck up the incentive structures.

nabnob 7y ago
But the people actually doing the research aren't the ones making a profit.
- refurb 7y ago
  When I was working in Pharma, the PhDs in the lab were some of the highest paid PhDs in the US. They certainly share in the profit.
  - nabnob 7y ago
    Do you mean they held shares in the company, or that they made a high salary?
    - refurb 7y ago
      Both.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Many are. Just like in tech, much of the pharma pipeline is startups that are acquired by big cos. And, like in tech, lots of skilled technical workers who don’t become founders are making big salaries.
AndrewOMartin 7y ago
There's a happy medium between turning drug development into a charity and pushing the profit margins as far as they go. I'm just asking for recognition that although most people would pay an amount that would bankrupt them for a single dose of a lifesaving drug, doesn't mean that you should routinely charge that much. Profit margins work when it's consumer goods. For example: Scenario #1: Sell 10 TVs at $1,000 each. Profit=$10,000. Scenario #2: Sell 20 TVs at $100 each. Profit=$2,000. I don't care how many people have TVs, so I'm happy for you to choose scenario #1. However, if instead of TVs, it was a lifesaving drug, Scenario #1 is a huge tragedy, where 10 people die in the process. Repeat, there must be a happy medium between pure charity and price gouging.
- bwaldrep 7y ago
  The issue with finding a "happy medium" in one segment of the market is that investment capital will immediately start to flow towards other segments of the market without such constraints. In your example where TVs are a lifesaving drug, you could argue that we should find a happy medium where TV manufacturers are only making 3-4k in profit. In the short term this would increase the accessibility of TVs, saving lives. In the long term this would cripple future investment in better TVs, reducing lives saved in the future. Investment is distributed in response to expectation of future returns. If you want more lifesaving drugs you should incentivize their creation, not penalize the field relative to less important pursuits. Some people will pursue medical research (or invest in it) for its own sake out of an admirable desire to help others. Many more will work for whoever will pay the most, or invest in whatever business has the most potential for profit. You don't have to admire those people, but it's not rational to actively push them away from fields where their work could benefit others.
  - AndrewOMartin 7y ago
    All I'm asking is for people to consider saving lives as having a non-zero value .