4 ms·
Not only that, but the patent system is 100% essential to pharma research. Pharma takes a crapload of time from patent to market because of the many layers or
by Pxtl 3y ago
Not only that, but the patent system is 100% essential to pharma research. Pharma takes a crapload of time from patent to market because of the many layers or trial safety. There are drugs that just plain miss their deadline -- setbacks during the testing process for enough time and then the patent expires and a medication with useful applications get lost to history.
If you substantially screwed with that without a very careful and thorough knowledge of the consequences, drug discovery could grind to a halt.
Remember, this is an industry that's more than happy to just stop making drugs and let all the sufferers die if it's not profitable enough.
- terragon 3y agoDrug discovery has already mostly ground to a halt, so I don't think we'd be breaking much of a system.
- Pxtl 3y agoI think mRNA vaccines provide a pretty strong counter-argument. And do you know how many heart patients are alive today thanks to apixaban? Before that drug people were taking literal rat-poison as an anticoagulant.
- defrost 3y ago> Before that drug people were taking literal anticoagulant as an anticoagulant. and now they are taking a different literal anticoagulant as anticoagulant. w00t! Quick question- will a massive dose of apixaban kill a rat the same as a massive dose of an anticoagulant will? mRNA's are novel, on this we can agree, and I have no issue with their use. Other sectors of the drug market are less novel and more about slightly different for the purposes of starting the clock on drug copyrights and licencing again.
- thayne 3y agoPatents as a driver for drug discovery has problems too. The most obvious is it means there is very little incentive to research and get FDA approval for treatments that aren't patentable, even if those might lead to better outcomes than patented treatments. I don't really have a good alternative though.