4 ms·

Doesn't the government also fund a lot of pharma R&D? Here's a 2019 article that came up in a Google search: Taxpayers funded this HIV research. The government

Doesn't the government also fund a lot of pharma R&D? Here's a 2019 article that came up in a Google search: Taxpayers funded this HIV research. The government patented it. Now a company profits https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gilead-sciences-truvada-hiv-prep-20190327-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gilead-sciences-truva...

tptacek 2y ago
Taxpayers fund all sorts of stuff that is ultimately commercialized!
- kiba 2y ago
  The outcome for taxpayer ROI should be about the benefit to the public at large regardless of who commercialized it. Commercialization should eventually lead to better and cheaper version of the technology, which increases benefit to the public. Of course, the people who worked to commercialize it deserve pay for their work, so the question is exactly how much.
- asveikau 2y ago
  So that's an argument that the government and the public should get a return on that investment, or profits should be constrained. Or an argument against exclusive rights being in private hands.
  - sroussey 2y ago
    Universities certainly do. IP transfer is big business. Subsidies for oil, not so much.
  - ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
    The public gets access to a life-saving drug that otherwise would not exist, which is exactly what the government is paying for. You can reasonably argue they they should get more, but arguing that they should get some ROI is moot; they're already getting a tremendous ROI
    - asveikau 2y ago
      The public gets the privilege to be price gouged for stuff their taxes paid for. Doesn't sound like a good deal. Many will not have access at higher costs. Price gouging restricts access.
      - ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
        Are you saying the public would prefer that the drug not exist over the drug being expensive? If not, the public is getting a return. Like I said, it is reasonable to argue that the public deserves more return, ie. that it's a bad deal. But the argument that it's paid for by taxes and therefore should provide value to the public falls short of disagreeing with the status quo.
        asveikau 2y ago
        I'm saying it may as well not exist for people who can't afford it. You might say it's worse than not existing when it does exist but they can't have it because you would rather people die than receive treatment, due to your weird ideas about people making money and how justified that is. Your bend over backwards justification of greed over human life is rather insane.
        tptacek 2y ago
        It clearly seems not to be the case that this treatment "might as well not exist" for people who can't afford it, in that it has been administered to many people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and likely will continue to be. Further: omit things like your last sentence from your comments; they hurt your case.
        asveikau 2y ago
        > Further: omit things like your last sentence from your comments; they hurt your case. It hurts people more to deny them medical care, and that is what makes it so enraging, I would say reasonably so. Becoming angry at such absurdity is a reasonable response. I toned it down from something much harsher. It is a truly deranged position to advocate for denying access to health care breakthroughs, and then act like that's doing people favors, calling it expanding access when you want to deny it. It makes little sense to me to advocate an explicitly inhumane action, then say I'm doing an ad hominem when I call it what it is. What do you call an opposing view which happens to be ad hominem to humanity in general? Misanthropic, I guess. Your sibling comment says hey now, I didn't say any of that, after having said all of that.
pfisherman 2y ago
The government funds a lot of early stage preclinical research. These are the inexpensive stages of the pipeline. As soon as you move into humans you can add another 2 or 3 zeros to your burn rate. It is not politically feasible for the public sector to fund later stages. The numbers are just too big. Just think of the campaign ads that would run around $200M late stage failure funded by the government. The reason why mega giant pharma companies exist is because they make enough money and are capitalized enough to withstand multiple $100M failures without going belly up.

tptacek 2y ago

Taxpayers fund all sorts of stuff that is ultimately commercialized!

kiba 2y ago
The outcome for taxpayer ROI should be about the benefit to the public at large regardless of who commercialized it. Commercialization should eventually lead to better and cheaper version of the technology, which increases benefit to the public. Of course, the people who worked to commercialize it deserve pay for their work, so the question is exactly how much.
asveikau 2y ago
So that's an argument that the government and the public should get a return on that investment, or profits should be constrained. Or an argument against exclusive rights being in private hands.
- sroussey 2y ago
  Universities certainly do. IP transfer is big business. Subsidies for oil, not so much.
- ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
  The public gets access to a life-saving drug that otherwise would not exist, which is exactly what the government is paying for. You can reasonably argue they they should get more, but arguing that they should get some ROI is moot; they're already getting a tremendous ROI
  - asveikau 2y ago
    The public gets the privilege to be price gouged for stuff their taxes paid for. Doesn't sound like a good deal. Many will not have access at higher costs. Price gouging restricts access.
    - ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
      Are you saying the public would prefer that the drug not exist over the drug being expensive? If not, the public is getting a return. Like I said, it is reasonable to argue that the public deserves more return, ie. that it's a bad deal. But the argument that it's paid for by taxes and therefore should provide value to the public falls short of disagreeing with the status quo.
      - asveikau 2y ago
        I'm saying it may as well not exist for people who can't afford it. You might say it's worse than not existing when it does exist but they can't have it because you would rather people die than receive treatment, due to your weird ideas about people making money and how justified that is. Your bend over backwards justification of greed over human life is rather insane.
        tptacek 2y ago
        It clearly seems not to be the case that this treatment "might as well not exist" for people who can't afford it, in that it has been administered to many people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and likely will continue to be. Further: omit things like your last sentence from your comments; they hurt your case.
        asveikau 2y ago
        > Further: omit things like your last sentence from your comments; they hurt your case. It hurts people more to deny them medical care, and that is what makes it so enraging, I would say reasonably so. Becoming angry at such absurdity is a reasonable response. I toned it down from something much harsher. It is a truly deranged position to advocate for denying access to health care breakthroughs, and then act like that's doing people favors, calling it expanding access when you want to deny it. It makes little sense to me to advocate an explicitly inhumane action, then say I'm doing an ad hominem when I call it what it is. What do you call an opposing view which happens to be ad hominem to humanity in general? Misanthropic, I guess. Your sibling comment says hey now, I didn't say any of that, after having said all of that.

pfisherman 2y ago

The government funds a lot of early stage preclinical research. These are the inexpensive stages of the pipeline. As soon as you move into humans you can add another 2 or 3 zeros to your burn rate. It is not politically feasible for the public sector to fund later stages. The numbers are just too big. Just think of the campaign ads that would run around $200M late stage failure funded by the government. The reason why mega giant pharma companies exist is because they make enough money and are capitalized enough to withstand multiple $100M failures without going belly up.