3 ms·

Somebody has to pay for the drugs development, the poor can't pay, if the rich (US) won't pay, there simply won't be any drug.

sowbug 8mo ago
The poor can pay for the drug development quite well. It takes a rich country to pay for all the regulatory capture.
- johanvts 8mo ago
  Nicely put :)
direwolf20 8mo ago
That's why I pay Apple extra money to develop the next big thing. If I only pay the sticker price of the iPhone, there won't be any more innovative products. But if we all get together and pay double the sticker price, we'll get some true innovation!
- johanvts 8mo ago
  Nobody is suggesting paying Novo up front, they footed that bill, we are talking about paying a premium after product lunch, which people certainly did for the iPhone.
A1kmm 8mo ago
In a free-market approach to drug development, if the expected loss of attempting to develop as drug is negative, and the cost isn't too high, then there is an incentive to develop that. The best public policy outcome in such an approach would be for losses to be only slightly negative. Positive or zero expected losses mean no drug development, and highly negative expected losses mean the drug is more expensive than necessary and reduces the accessibility of the drug. However, current patent law allows companies to minimise their expected loss, with no controls to prevent highly negative expected losses. There are alternative models - such as state funding of drug development. This model has benefit that it is possible to optimise more directly for measures like QALY Saved (Quality Adjusted Life Years Saved) - which drug sale revenue is an imperfect proxy for due to some diseases being more prevalent amongst affluent people, and because one-time cures can be high QALY Saved but lower revenue. The complexity of state funding is it still has the free-rider problem at a international level (some states invest less per capita in funding). This is a problem which can be solved to an extent with treaties, and which doesn't need to be solved perfectly to do a lot of good.
- pfdietz 8mo ago
  Excessive profits from patented drugs are controlled by development of competing drugs. These competitors arise until profits are driven down to the point further development of competitors is inhibited.
- johanvts 8mo ago
  The US has zero credibility w.r.t making international treaties these days. And generally is completely set up for a few peoples maximum “expected negative loss”. Sure things could theoretically be structured differently, but for the foreseeable future they aren’t.

sowbug 8mo ago

The poor can pay for the drug development quite well. It takes a rich country to pay for all the regulatory capture.

johanvts 8mo ago
Nicely put :)

direwolf20 8mo ago

That's why I pay Apple extra money to develop the next big thing. If I only pay the sticker price of the iPhone, there won't be any more innovative products. But if we all get together and pay double the sticker price, we'll get some true innovation!

johanvts 8mo ago
Nobody is suggesting paying Novo up front, they footed that bill, we are talking about paying a premium after product lunch, which people certainly did for the iPhone.

A1kmm 8mo ago

In a free-market approach to drug development, if the expected loss of attempting to develop as drug is negative, and the cost isn't too high, then there is an incentive to develop that. The best public policy outcome in such an approach would be for losses to be only slightly negative. Positive or zero expected losses mean no drug development, and highly negative expected losses mean the drug is more expensive than necessary and reduces the accessibility of the drug. However, current patent law allows companies to minimise their expected loss, with no controls to prevent highly negative expected losses. There are alternative models - such as state funding of drug development. This model has benefit that it is possible to optimise more directly for measures like QALY Saved (Quality Adjusted Life Years Saved) - which drug sale revenue is an imperfect proxy for due to some diseases being more prevalent amongst affluent people, and because one-time cures can be high QALY Saved but lower revenue. The complexity of state funding is it still has the free-rider problem at a international level (some states invest less per capita in funding). This is a problem which can be solved to an extent with treaties, and which doesn't need to be solved perfectly to do a lot of good.

pfdietz 8mo ago
Excessive profits from patented drugs are controlled by development of competing drugs. These competitors arise until profits are driven down to the point further development of competitors is inhibited.
johanvts 8mo ago
The US has zero credibility w.r.t making international treaties these days. And generally is completely set up for a few peoples maximum “expected negative loss”. Sure things could theoretically be structured differently, but for the foreseeable future they aren’t.