5 ms·

Really? How about socializing all of medicine.

by pacifist 5y ago

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Including drug discovery? I'm very skeptical of that working out better than the current system (for drug discovery).
- monocasa 5y ago
  Our current system uses incredible amounts of public funding for drug discovery. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/2329 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/2329
  - TomVDB 5y ago
    The article references mentions $100B over a period of 7 years, or $14B per year. That’s a decent chunk of money, but it’s important to put it in perspective. Pfizer alone spends around $10B per year on R&D. J&J: $12B. Merck: $13B.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      And how much of the expenditure goes anywhere useful? And remember that they're incentivized to report 15% of their revenue being spent on R&D for tax reasons. That $100B is just for drugs that later got FDA approval, not the NIH grant budget.
      - TomVDB 5y ago
        If you’re going to make that argument, you also have to consider the opposite possibility: I’ve worked on (non-medical) projects with public funding in the past. One can only hope that my experience wasn’t representative for the amount waste of public money in the medical world.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - conanbatt 5y ago
      The coronavirus probably shows patents to be a thorny mechanism for innovation. Pfizer might have a vax patent but then can't freely make money of it. If there were no patents, but they were the best manufacturers, might have been easier to have a freer market on it. Patents necessarily put more capital investments into patentable work than unpatentable work, but that doesnt mean it is more efficient. I understand the principle of patents, but eventually you end up in heavy interventionism, state funding, litigation, etc. Best to do away of all of that imo.
JamesBarney 5y ago
The patent's purpose is to incentivize innovation. Some industries need this (medical) others don't (software). So if you got rid of patents innovation in some industries will be fine (software) and others will be wrecked (medical). Patents are not the only way to incentivize innovation, and I think it'd be great to experiment with some other ways. Socializing medicine is completely orthogonal to this issue. Unless you mean socializing drug discovery which would be a completely unproven way to develop drugs at scale.
- monocasa 5y ago
  It's funny, I've heard from biomed engineers that it's clear to them that patents don't work in the medical field, unlike how they're effective in the software field. It feels like every field knows that they're a cash grab without a lot of benefits, but assumes there's some industry that they don't work in where they're needed.
  - hi_im_miles 5y ago
    Though this is only one person's personal experience, to me this was an illuminating conversation on the state of medical device repair as a consequence of strong IP protections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJG2ODOcXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJG2ODOcXA
  - breck 5y ago
    Exactly this. I worked for a few years in big tech, and it was crystal clear that patents and copyrights were awful in tech. But I believed the lie that maybe in medicine, they were needed. I spent a few years in medical research and realized that ohhhh shit, even worse in this industry. The whole thing is a big lie. End copyrights. End patents. The ideal length is zero. There is no case to be made to support them. We need to abolish them outright.
    - anticensor 5y ago
      Not zero, but 3½ years for patents and 21 years (7+3½ per extension) for copyright is enough.

Really? How about socializing all of medicine.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

Including drug discovery? I'm very skeptical of that working out better than the current system (for drug discovery).

monocasa 5y ago
Our current system uses incredible amounts of public funding for drug discovery. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/2329 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/2329
- TomVDB 5y ago
  The article references mentions $100B over a period of 7 years, or $14B per year. That’s a decent chunk of money, but it’s important to put it in perspective. Pfizer alone spends around $10B per year on R&D. J&J: $12B. Merck: $13B.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    And how much of the expenditure goes anywhere useful? And remember that they're incentivized to report 15% of their revenue being spent on R&D for tax reasons. That $100B is just for drugs that later got FDA approval, not the NIH grant budget.
    - TomVDB 5y ago
      If you’re going to make that argument, you also have to consider the opposite possibility: I’ve worked on (non-medical) projects with public funding in the past. One can only hope that my experience wasn’t representative for the amount waste of public money in the medical world.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - conanbatt 5y ago
    The coronavirus probably shows patents to be a thorny mechanism for innovation. Pfizer might have a vax patent but then can't freely make money of it. If there were no patents, but they were the best manufacturers, might have been easier to have a freer market on it. Patents necessarily put more capital investments into patentable work than unpatentable work, but that doesnt mean it is more efficient. I understand the principle of patents, but eventually you end up in heavy interventionism, state funding, litigation, etc. Best to do away of all of that imo.

JamesBarney 5y ago

The patent's purpose is to incentivize innovation. Some industries need this (medical) others don't (software). So if you got rid of patents innovation in some industries will be fine (software) and others will be wrecked (medical). Patents are not the only way to incentivize innovation, and I think it'd be great to experiment with some other ways. Socializing medicine is completely orthogonal to this issue. Unless you mean socializing drug discovery which would be a completely unproven way to develop drugs at scale.

monocasa 5y ago
It's funny, I've heard from biomed engineers that it's clear to them that patents don't work in the medical field, unlike how they're effective in the software field. It feels like every field knows that they're a cash grab without a lot of benefits, but assumes there's some industry that they don't work in where they're needed.
- hi_im_miles 5y ago
  Though this is only one person's personal experience, to me this was an illuminating conversation on the state of medical device repair as a consequence of strong IP protections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJG2ODOcXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJG2ODOcXA
- breck 5y ago
  Exactly this. I worked for a few years in big tech, and it was crystal clear that patents and copyrights were awful in tech. But I believed the lie that maybe in medicine, they were needed. I spent a few years in medical research and realized that ohhhh shit, even worse in this industry. The whole thing is a big lie. End copyrights. End patents. The ideal length is zero. There is no case to be made to support them. We need to abolish them outright.
  - anticensor 5y ago
    Not zero, but 3½ years for patents and 21 years (7+3½ per extension) for copyright is enough.