3 ms·

The counterargument is that if a company is the first to discover that a given molecule is useful medically, and is safe in humans, then they should get exclusi

by ericd 16y ago

The counterargument is that if a company is the first to discover that a given molecule is useful medically, and is safe in humans, then they should get exclusive rights to sell that molecule for some time. This makes sense because it is atrociously expensive to get to that point, and the idea that another company should be allowed to manufacture and sell that same molecule after all the hard work has been done by subbing in different chemical reactions to get there is sort of silly. EDIT: Didn't see the last line there. Are you sure that the vast majority are govt. funded all the way to the end of clinical trials? This doesn't jive with what I've heard.

srean 16y ago
Not sure if you are the down-voter. But regardless of that I have to say, I totally believed in what you just wrote, said so much myself if you note my last paragraph. But I was naive then. I have come to realize that the situation you describe is mostly hypothetical and fictional...good argument to buy favors...but not one that represents reality. The private companies are not the ones who are spending money or taking the risks in developing new drugs/molecules (it is mostly the tax payers by way of NIH). If it were the companies then I wouldn't mind it all. The companies do spend money. But it is not in the (re)search for more effective or new drugs. Edit: Re govt funding, I have quite a few friends who are in drug research, well, in the capacity of current and ex grad students and spread across 3 universities and a research institute. All of them are fed funded, and they claim that this is generally the rule rather than the exception. In my opinion the privilege of exclusivity should be doled out in proportion to the aggregated (monetary)risks entertained. Edit2: Don't like threads that nest too deep, so adding here. I would readily concede that I wouldn't have names of drugs at the drop of the hat. My opinions are largely assimilated from my friends working in the area and what I get to read. So hardly the person who would be able to quote stats. Recently an application for extending the period of protection for a anti-retroviral drug was denied in India on the grounds that the molecular change adds nothing to the efficacy of the drug and that the molecular changes in itself do not constitute a non-obvious modification to the chemical to a person of the trade. However, denials of extension like these are very very rare. It is common to keep extending a patent on an old molecule in quantums of decades at a time (Now I wish I had it bookmarked) However I think your test is stricter than need be. As I said, I am looking for proportionality between risk taken and period of exclusivity. That can be broken even if the govt did not carry the full weight from end to end (the example that you are seeking). Generally it is the research phase that incurs the most uncertainty and the kind of research that targets greater efficiency or cheaper production, not what will get the drug or derivative an extended protection. In the context of the older Indian scene, it was the govt funded labs that carried out the research, so it made perfect sense that patents be granted on the process and not on the compound. It also makes sense for the govt to be in the business of funding drug research as for many of the diseases the affected demographics are not most lucrative. (Well unless one is of the opinion that such a population is better of dead, not an unheard of opinion on the net) The research scene is still the same but the laws have been changed subject to international pressure. There is substantial benefit to be had by driving costs down. In the current scheme of things there are very little incentives to do so.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- ericd 16y ago
  Nope, didn't downvote. I know that the US government funds a lot of research via the NIH, and I'm familiar with the fuzzy lines between government and private research in some cases (I have relatives who do research for universities but get DARPA funding), but could you cite some examples of the govt. handing exclusivity to the drug companies after NIH did all the research and clinical trials for a drug?
barrkel 16y ago
"then they should get exclusive rights" - you say this like it's a tautology, like it's self-evident, but it's not. What you are actually arguing is "then the government should grant the company an exclusive monopoly", like some kind of royal commission (which is, of course, the source of the word patent, with letters patent etc.). It's the antithesis of the free market.
- ericd 16y ago
  Yeah, that's what I meant, I was just being imprecise. Another form of it is that it appeals to one's sense of fairness, as well as a government's sense of duty to promoting a healthy economy, that a company that invests a huge amount of money on an uncertain bet shouldn't be allowed to be undercut easily. What I was saying is that the initial formulation and vetting of the chemical is the hard part, so that's the part that should be protected, not the relatively trivial manufacturing component.

by ericd 16y ago

srean 16y ago

Not sure if you are the down-voter. But regardless of that I have to say, I totally believed in what you just wrote, said so much myself if you note my last paragraph. But I was naive then. I have come to realize that the situation you describe is mostly hypothetical and fictional...good argument to buy favors...but not one that represents reality. The private companies are not the ones who are spending money or taking the risks in developing new drugs/molecules (it is mostly the tax payers by way of NIH). If it were the companies then I wouldn't mind it all. The companies do spend money. But it is not in the (re)search for more effective or new drugs. Edit: Re govt funding, I have quite a few friends who are in drug research, well, in the capacity of current and ex grad students and spread across 3 universities and a research institute. All of them are fed funded, and they claim that this is generally the rule rather than the exception. In my opinion the privilege of exclusivity should be doled out in proportion to the aggregated (monetary)risks entertained. Edit2: Don't like threads that nest too deep, so adding here. I would readily concede that I wouldn't have names of drugs at the drop of the hat. My opinions are largely assimilated from my friends working in the area and what I get to read. So hardly the person who would be able to quote stats. Recently an application for extending the period of protection for a anti-retroviral drug was denied in India on the grounds that the molecular change adds nothing to the efficacy of the drug and that the molecular changes in itself do not constitute a non-obvious modification to the chemical to a person of the trade. However, denials of extension like these are very very rare. It is common to keep extending a patent on an old molecule in quantums of decades at a time (Now I wish I had it bookmarked) However I think your test is stricter than need be. As I said, I am looking for proportionality between risk taken and period of exclusivity. That can be broken even if the govt did not carry the full weight from end to end (the example that you are seeking). Generally it is the research phase that incurs the most uncertainty and the kind of research that targets greater efficiency or cheaper production, not what will get the drug or derivative an extended protection. In the context of the older Indian scene, it was the govt funded labs that carried out the research, so it made perfect sense that patents be granted on the process and not on the compound. It also makes sense for the govt to be in the business of funding drug research as for many of the diseases the affected demographics are not most lucrative. (Well unless one is of the opinion that such a population is better of dead, not an unheard of opinion on the net) The research scene is still the same but the laws have been changed subject to international pressure. There is substantial benefit to be had by driving costs down. In the current scheme of things there are very little incentives to do so.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ericd 16y ago
Nope, didn't downvote. I know that the US government funds a lot of research via the NIH, and I'm familiar with the fuzzy lines between government and private research in some cases (I have relatives who do research for universities but get DARPA funding), but could you cite some examples of the govt. handing exclusivity to the drug companies after NIH did all the research and clinical trials for a drug?

barrkel 16y ago

"then they should get exclusive rights" - you say this like it's a tautology, like it's self-evident, but it's not. What you are actually arguing is "then the government should grant the company an exclusive monopoly", like some kind of royal commission (which is, of course, the source of the word patent, with letters patent etc.). It's the antithesis of the free market.

ericd 16y ago
Yeah, that's what I meant, I was just being imprecise. Another form of it is that it appeals to one's sense of fairness, as well as a government's sense of duty to promoting a healthy economy, that a company that invests a huge amount of money on an uncertain bet shouldn't be allowed to be undercut easily. What I was saying is that the initial formulation and vetting of the chemical is the hard part, so that's the part that should be protected, not the relatively trivial manufacturing component.