3 ms·

all of that “stuff that already worked” is from the the stuff that used to be new

• tialaramex 4y ago
  Most of the "stuff that used to be new" is long gone. Once the exclusivity expires, there's no reason to make sixteen distinct medicines that are really just a single idea smeared out to score points, so you either invent more or you go back to only supplying the thing everybody actually wanted. And there's no need for making medicines which merely "used to be new" any more profitable than say, felt tip pens or flour. I take Levothyroxine every morning (for the rest of my life) and they figured out how to synthesize that about a hundred years ago. Nobody who worked on that project is even alive still, let alone relying on some hypothetical profits from their work. But guess what, in the US it'll cost more than it does here because the US values profit for pharmaceutical executives over healthcare for its citizens.
  • oneoff786 4y ago
    Sounds nice and all until you need a novel vaccine. The whole point is that the US being profitable allows research for new drugs, not that profits aren’t high in the US. Heck, Pfizer sells stuff at cost to about pretty large portion of the world now.