4 ms·

Even at 100x the price, the COVID vaccines have more consumer surplus than most things people buy. I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers

Even at 100x the price, the COVID vaccines have more consumer surplus than most things people buy. I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers. I want founders and early employees in companies that innovate in these spaces to be fabulously wealthy. I want ambitious young people to dream of becoming a billionaire by curing cancer rather thank making a social media app.

bloodyplonker22 4y ago
I would like people to innovate as well, but covid vaccines are probably one of the worst examples that you could have used.
sokoloff 4y ago
I agree in part and disagree in part. I want there to be a financial incentive to improve the lives of humanity via medical advances, whether that’s pharmaceutical, surgical, assistive devices, etc. I also want to leave money for the rest of the economy, so that doesn’t really leave room for $5200/year/person for 2 COVID shots. (That’s about 7.5% of GDP just for COVID shots if every American gets 2 such shots per year, which is pretty obviously untenable.)
sfusato 4y ago
> I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers. I want founders and early employees in companies that innovate in these spaces to be fabulously wealthy. Sure, in an utopian world that would work. But, here on planet Earth, that would massively increase the incentives of fraud. There are already huge issues with this. Increasing the payout by x100 would do more harm than good in this context.
hourago 4y ago
> I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers. I want citizens to not die of treatable diseases. Our goals seem to be different.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  I want citizens not to die of untreatable diseases. It is better to have very expensive treatments for a disease than no treatments for a disease.
  - envp 4y ago
    What good is a treatment if you can’t access it? If you’re poor enough even food poisoning is “untreatable”.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
      Presumably at least 1 person would be able to access the treatment. 1 is infinitely greater than the 0 people who would have access to the treatment of there was none. In addition, like all technology, there is a tendency to go from something for the very rich to something common.
  - hourago 4y ago
    > It is better to have very expensive treatments for a disease than no treatments for a disease. False duality. We can have treatments fairly priced. The only reason that this ones are so expensive is because monopolies and corruption.
gtvwill 4y ago
Didn't really cure anything tho I'f they price treatment out of reach of the masses. It'd just be better seeing rules in place so billionaires don't exist. The concept one individual can have so much is absurd. Basically a sign of a failing society to allow such polarization between wages at the top and the bottom.
scotty79 4y ago
That's not what happens in Big Pharma. In anything but covid their huge money makers are marketing, lobbying and bribery. Medical innovation lies somewhere at the bitter end. Successful covid vaccines didn't come from Big Pharma. Moderna and Novartis were not that.

bloodyplonker22 4y ago

I would like people to innovate as well, but covid vaccines are probably one of the worst examples that you could have used.

sokoloff 4y ago

I agree in part and disagree in part. I want there to be a financial incentive to improve the lives of humanity via medical advances, whether that’s pharmaceutical, surgical, assistive devices, etc. I also want to leave money for the rest of the economy, so that doesn’t really leave room for $5200/year/person for 2 COVID shots. (That’s about 7.5% of GDP just for COVID shots if every American gets 2 such shots per year, which is pretty obviously untenable.)

sfusato 4y ago

> I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers. I want founders and early employees in companies that innovate in these spaces to be fabulously wealthy. Sure, in an utopian world that would work. But, here on planet Earth, that would massively increase the incentives of fraud. There are already huge issues with this. Increasing the payout by x100 would do more harm than good in this context.

hourago 4y ago

> I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers. I want citizens to not die of treatable diseases. Our goals seem to be different.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
I want citizens not to die of untreatable diseases. It is better to have very expensive treatments for a disease than no treatments for a disease.
- envp 4y ago
  What good is a treatment if you can’t access it? If you’re poor enough even food poisoning is “untreatable”.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
    Presumably at least 1 person would be able to access the treatment. 1 is infinitely greater than the 0 people who would have access to the treatment of there was none. In addition, like all technology, there is a tendency to go from something for the very rich to something common.
- hourago 4y ago
  > It is better to have very expensive treatments for a disease than no treatments for a disease. False duality. We can have treatments fairly priced. The only reason that this ones are so expensive is because monopolies and corruption.

gtvwill 4y ago

Didn't really cure anything tho I'f they price treatment out of reach of the masses. It'd just be better seeing rules in place so billionaires don't exist. The concept one individual can have so much is absurd. Basically a sign of a failing society to allow such polarization between wages at the top and the bottom.

scotty79 4y ago

That's not what happens in Big Pharma. In anything but covid their huge money makers are marketing, lobbying and bribery. Medical innovation lies somewhere at the bitter end. Successful covid vaccines didn't come from Big Pharma. Moderna and Novartis were not that.