5 ms·

US and UK 'lead push against global patent pool for Covid-19 drugs'

63 points by quijoteuniv 6y ago

aurizon 6y ago
Of course they led this. How could drug companies exist on open sourced patents? One might say 'it is only the free market system that incents development of new drugs, without which we would all die unmedicated (AKA the ultimate revenge against your MD). There needs to be a middle ground. How else can we eliminate this egregious abuse of the US poor. from wikiperdia: Albendazole was developed in 1975.[5] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.[6] The wholesale cost in the developing world is between 0.01 and US$0.06 per dose.[7] In the United States, as of 2019, the wholesale cost is about US$128 per dose.[8]
yogthos 6y ago
This is such an absurd argument: >We continue to support public-private partnerships for product development, and approaches such as non-exclusive voluntary licensing which promote affordable access for all while also providing incentives to create life-changing vaccines. The researchers doing the actual work to create life-changing vaccines are clearly not driven by profit, nor do they actually get a share of that profit being salaried. The question is of a monetary incentive for funding the research in the first place. Seems to me that this is a strong argument for important research being done at state level since private companies won't do it without a profit incentive.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  It just means "we can't take pharmaceutical companies' profit away when it's the biggest goldmine they've seen in the past century". They were fine before COVID, they'll be fine without profiteering from it.
  - yogthos 6y ago
    The point here is that profit has no place in things like healthcare in the first place. People's lives should not be evaluated in terms of profitability. This also results in completely wrong incentives. For example, making a treatment that can be sold repeatedly is more profitable than making a vaccine that eradicates a diseases. Profit motive is entirely at odds with what's actually desirable in this scenario.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      Agreed, but it's a bit too short notice to change that in time for COVID treatments/cures/vaccines.
      - yogthos 6y ago
        I think what's going to happen is that countries like China are going to lead the way with covid drug and vaccine development.
learnstats2 6y ago
I suggest that the 180+ countries which agree should now form their own bloc with an open license system. If the UK, US and Swiss governments are acting in a way which is harmful to everyone in the world, and against the wishes of 96% of their own population, a parallel power structure should be formed to lock them out and work around that.
- yogthos 6y ago
  This is precisely what's going to happen.
- mjburgess 6y ago
  Sure. And those countries should pool their research budgets and direct them to the institutions and companies which invent the vaccine technology. Of course, that isn't being proposed. What's being proposed is that the companies spending billions on research donate its results without compensation. That would be a catastrophe for R&D, as in the next major health crisis, no companies would do any R&D fearing bankruptcy if they did. Money exists for a reason, and things cost money for a reason.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    R & D in pharma has been drastically curtailed, partly because of poor returns. Publically funded pharma research wouldn't be the worst idea, also because of the research focus. Right now the money ends up in sectors that are profitable (cancer), not in sectors beneficial to public health (antibiotics, neglected tropical diseases).
  - learnstats2 6y ago
    If we follow your logic: Why is the state currently donating its results to companies profiting billions? https://other98.com/taxpayers-fund-pharma-research-development/ https://other98.com/taxpayers-fund-pharma-research-developme...
Ididntdothis 6y ago
I assume any vaccines or drugs will also cost 20x more in the US vs the rest of the world.
- yogthos 6y ago
  Wonder why this is being downvoted, this is literally what's happening with every other drug in US right now. For example, insulin is dirt cheap everywhere except US where people can't afford it and die trying to ration it.
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    The insulin situation is crazy. I used to work with a guy whose wife had diabetes. He said the only way for them to afford insulin was to get it from Canada or Mexico. Otherwise he said he could not pay for it.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      That's obscene
fxtentacle 6y ago
I predict that this will backfire in a big way. The people with the largest government-backed research budget and with the largest pool of data about Covid are likely Chinese. They'll probably also have enough patriotic citizens to try out new vaccines to benefit their country. Now imagine if a working Covid drug is indeed developed in China. Because the US and UK hollowed out the sharing agreement, they'll then need to call in favors. That might well ruin Trump politically, but at the very least it'll put both countries in a much weaker negotiation position for future trade agreements. I just don't see any reason why the US or the UK might be leading this research globally. So why would this seem like a good idea for them?
- noobaccount 6y ago
  Chinese pharma isn’t there yet.
  - yardie 6y ago
    Chinese manufacturing wasn't there yet. Chinese construction wasn't there yet. Western culture keeps underestimating China, perpetually saying they aren't there. And by the time they figure out they are there they are far past wherever there was supposedly.
    - votepaunchy 6y ago
      It not hard. China keeps winning by running the same play. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/china-hacking-poses-significant-threat-to-us-covid-19-response-says-fbi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/china-hacking-...
      - msg3 6y ago
        Just like the US and UK did when they were emerging economies.
      - yardie 6y ago
        > Neither agency cited any specific examples I don't even know what point you're trying to make.
dustinmoris 6y ago
The right middleground solution would be that countries who can pay should pay and those who cannot can get a license to produce the vaccine domestically without the right to sell it domestically or internationally. Basically socialism on a country level. I’d expect countries like Germany to pay a big price for the vaccine since they can afford it and the research must be funded by the rich, right? Less wealthy nations can get a free license to produce the vaccine domestically without paying. So everyone gets access AND the research gets funded and incentivised. EDIT: I expected this to get downvoted. Everyone loves socialism unless they belong to the richer group which is expected to settle the bill. The hypocrisy is just staggering. Nobody has pushed or send help to countries struggling with SARS, MERS or Ebola. People are still dying from those viruses today. Nobody is pushing for groundbreaking changes to climate change so that we don't kill the people of tomorrow. Just some worthless PR bs agreemetns drafted at some bs EU meetings where countries agree to set low targets, still fail to meet them and just pay small fines for it to wash their hands and feel good about destroying our planet. But as soon as there's a threat to these old fat elites right now then all of a sudden they have a vetted interest in doing the right thing for themselves cough sorry I mean obviously the greater good of humanity in true PR language. Humans are selfish pricks. The sooner one realises and accepts that as a fact, the sooner one can live in harmony in this world.
- toyg 6y ago
  Good luck selling that to the wealthy. German public opinion refuses to support even their own neighbours in the European Union...
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    German government funded research tends to be made publicly available, so if they find something, other countries would probably gain the knowledge necessary to produce their own medicine, too. Whether or not that creates some sort of "you owe me for the future" situation is another thing. But better to be healthy and owing your neighbors a favor, than to keep things a secret and let people die.
caseysoftware 6y ago
To be clear, this is about the phrasing of a resolution, not actual bad behavior, right? Frankly, I'm less concerned about the words on the paper than what people actually do.
- Havoc 6y ago
  Given the leaders in question I'm concerned about bad behaviour too
  - caseysoftware 6y ago
    Does the resolution prevent and/or punish bad behavior? aka Is it binding in case a signatory doesn't follow through on their commitment?
    - Havoc 6y ago
      >Does the resolution prevent and/or punish bad behavior? It's just an open letter signed by various presidents etc. Very much doubt anyone is expecting the US to sign even if it's non-binding. I mean they bailed on human rights council and UNESCO. UK...who knows they're in full on improv mode right now.
nine_zeros 6y ago
I think we're only going to see more piracy. If third world countries want to stop being underdeveloped, they need to act now and allow pirates to stop this inhumanity.
naruvimama 6y ago
The primary purpose of a patent system is to maximise the benefits of innovation in the long run. Not necessarily to maximise innovation. Each country's laws are meant to maximise it for its own citizens as long as the laws are applied without discrimination. If you want to convince a large and poor country to accept your standards in patent protection, show them how a large pool of their population will be involved in productive R&D.

63 points by quijoteuniv 6y ago

Of course they led this. How could drug companies exist on open sourced patents? One might say 'it is only the free market system that incents development of new drugs, without which we would all die unmedicated (AKA the ultimate revenge against your MD). There needs to be a middle ground. How else can we eliminate this egregious abuse of the US poor. from wikiperdia: Albendazole was developed in 1975.[5] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.[6] The wholesale cost in the developing world is between 0.01 and US$0.06 per dose.[7] In the United States, as of 2019, the wholesale cost is about US$128 per dose.[8]

yogthos 6y ago

This is such an absurd argument: >We continue to support public-private partnerships for product development, and approaches such as non-exclusive voluntary licensing which promote affordable access for all while also providing incentives to create life-changing vaccines. The researchers doing the actual work to create life-changing vaccines are clearly not driven by profit, nor do they actually get a share of that profit being salaried. The question is of a monetary incentive for funding the research in the first place. Seems to me that this is a strong argument for important research being done at state level since private companies won't do it without a profit incentive.

StavrosK 6y ago
It just means "we can't take pharmaceutical companies' profit away when it's the biggest goldmine they've seen in the past century". They were fine before COVID, they'll be fine without profiteering from it.
- yogthos 6y ago
  The point here is that profit has no place in things like healthcare in the first place. People's lives should not be evaluated in terms of profitability. This also results in completely wrong incentives. For example, making a treatment that can be sold repeatedly is more profitable than making a vaccine that eradicates a diseases. Profit motive is entirely at odds with what's actually desirable in this scenario.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Agreed, but it's a bit too short notice to change that in time for COVID treatments/cures/vaccines.
    - yogthos 6y ago
      I think what's going to happen is that countries like China are going to lead the way with covid drug and vaccine development.

learnstats2 6y ago

I suggest that the 180+ countries which agree should now form their own bloc with an open license system. If the UK, US and Swiss governments are acting in a way which is harmful to everyone in the world, and against the wishes of 96% of their own population, a parallel power structure should be formed to lock them out and work around that.

yogthos 6y ago
This is precisely what's going to happen.
mjburgess 6y ago
Sure. And those countries should pool their research budgets and direct them to the institutions and companies which invent the vaccine technology. Of course, that isn't being proposed. What's being proposed is that the companies spending billions on research donate its results without compensation. That would be a catastrophe for R&D, as in the next major health crisis, no companies would do any R&D fearing bankruptcy if they did. Money exists for a reason, and things cost money for a reason.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  R & D in pharma has been drastically curtailed, partly because of poor returns. Publically funded pharma research wouldn't be the worst idea, also because of the research focus. Right now the money ends up in sectors that are profitable (cancer), not in sectors beneficial to public health (antibiotics, neglected tropical diseases).
- learnstats2 6y ago
  If we follow your logic: Why is the state currently donating its results to companies profiting billions? https://other98.com/taxpayers-fund-pharma-research-development/ https://other98.com/taxpayers-fund-pharma-research-developme...

Ididntdothis 6y ago

I assume any vaccines or drugs will also cost 20x more in the US vs the rest of the world.

yogthos 6y ago
Wonder why this is being downvoted, this is literally what's happening with every other drug in US right now. For example, insulin is dirt cheap everywhere except US where people can't afford it and die trying to ration it.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  The insulin situation is crazy. I used to work with a guy whose wife had diabetes. He said the only way for them to afford insulin was to get it from Canada or Mexico. Otherwise he said he could not pay for it.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    That's obscene

fxtentacle 6y ago

I predict that this will backfire in a big way. The people with the largest government-backed research budget and with the largest pool of data about Covid are likely Chinese. They'll probably also have enough patriotic citizens to try out new vaccines to benefit their country. Now imagine if a working Covid drug is indeed developed in China. Because the US and UK hollowed out the sharing agreement, they'll then need to call in favors. That might well ruin Trump politically, but at the very least it'll put both countries in a much weaker negotiation position for future trade agreements. I just don't see any reason why the US or the UK might be leading this research globally. So why would this seem like a good idea for them?

noobaccount 6y ago
Chinese pharma isn’t there yet.
- yardie 6y ago
  Chinese manufacturing wasn't there yet. Chinese construction wasn't there yet. Western culture keeps underestimating China, perpetually saying they aren't there. And by the time they figure out they are there they are far past wherever there was supposedly.
  - votepaunchy 6y ago
    It not hard. China keeps winning by running the same play. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/china-hacking-poses-significant-threat-to-us-covid-19-response-says-fbi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/china-hacking-...
    - msg3 6y ago
      Just like the US and UK did when they were emerging economies.
    - yardie 6y ago
      > Neither agency cited any specific examples I don't even know what point you're trying to make.

dustinmoris 6y ago

The right middleground solution would be that countries who can pay should pay and those who cannot can get a license to produce the vaccine domestically without the right to sell it domestically or internationally. Basically socialism on a country level. I’d expect countries like Germany to pay a big price for the vaccine since they can afford it and the research must be funded by the rich, right? Less wealthy nations can get a free license to produce the vaccine domestically without paying. So everyone gets access AND the research gets funded and incentivised. EDIT: I expected this to get downvoted. Everyone loves socialism unless they belong to the richer group which is expected to settle the bill. The hypocrisy is just staggering. Nobody has pushed or send help to countries struggling with SARS, MERS or Ebola. People are still dying from those viruses today. Nobody is pushing for groundbreaking changes to climate change so that we don't kill the people of tomorrow. Just some worthless PR bs agreemetns drafted at some bs EU meetings where countries agree to set low targets, still fail to meet them and just pay small fines for it to wash their hands and feel good about destroying our planet. But as soon as there's a threat to these old fat elites right now then all of a sudden they have a vetted interest in doing the right thing for themselves cough sorry I mean obviously the greater good of humanity in true PR language. Humans are selfish pricks. The sooner one realises and accepts that as a fact, the sooner one can live in harmony in this world.

toyg 6y ago
Good luck selling that to the wealthy. German public opinion refuses to support even their own neighbours in the European Union...
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  German government funded research tends to be made publicly available, so if they find something, other countries would probably gain the knowledge necessary to produce their own medicine, too. Whether or not that creates some sort of "you owe me for the future" situation is another thing. But better to be healthy and owing your neighbors a favor, than to keep things a secret and let people die.

caseysoftware 6y ago

To be clear, this is about the phrasing of a resolution, not actual bad behavior, right? Frankly, I'm less concerned about the words on the paper than what people actually do.

Havoc 6y ago
Given the leaders in question I'm concerned about bad behaviour too
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  Does the resolution prevent and/or punish bad behavior? aka Is it binding in case a signatory doesn't follow through on their commitment?
  - Havoc 6y ago
    >Does the resolution prevent and/or punish bad behavior? It's just an open letter signed by various presidents etc. Very much doubt anyone is expecting the US to sign even if it's non-binding. I mean they bailed on human rights council and UNESCO. UK...who knows they're in full on improv mode right now.

nine_zeros 6y ago

I think we're only going to see more piracy. If third world countries want to stop being underdeveloped, they need to act now and allow pirates to stop this inhumanity.

naruvimama 6y ago

The primary purpose of a patent system is to maximise the benefits of innovation in the long run. Not necessarily to maximise innovation. Each country's laws are meant to maximise it for its own citizens as long as the laws are applied without discrimination. If you want to convince a large and poor country to accept your standards in patent protection, show them how a large pool of their population will be involved in productive R&D.