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Tell you what. Let us enumerate the number of new advanced drugs that Non-Indians brought to India. That list will be long; the worst part is that all those te

Tell you what. Let us enumerate the number of new advanced drugs that Non-Indians brought to India. That list will be long; the worst part is that all those technical drug lists may turn out to have at least one Indian working on them, our emigration is huge. To take a technical comparison, what would have happened if Satya Nadella & Sundar Pichai had stayed back over here? Anyway, that's an argument for another day. To get back to the topic, Non-Indians may benefit from the patent regime; but they got the products here in the first place. In short, the "refutation" is a simple quid pro quo: the foreigners manufacture most drugs, and they get the most patents. There is no argument here on whether patents are bad, it is a stupid defense of an idiotic method of patent grants. Most Indian pharma firms have no meaningful R&D, they make their profits on generics. Socialists like the present government will never understand a free market, if they want these expensive drugs for free, they have to pay for them somehow. Not by abusing a bad patent system which is protectionist. Either they should abolish patents (which is the best way) and take the results, or they start applying patents the ostensible way they are meant to be applied, which is to pay attention to whether the pharma breakthrough is big enough to merit a patent, or not.

senthil_rajasek 13y ago
"Socialists like the present government will never understand a free market, if they want these expensive drugs for free, they have to pay for them somehow." Can you substantiate your claim that the present government in India is socialist and that they don't understand free markets? Also, the article does not talk about free drugs?
JamesArgo 13y ago
Ahh, to live in a free society, where men and woman can own their ideas and stop all others from thinking and acting on similar lines. What liberty we enjoy. How free we are. We own matter, energy and land, yet we can't use them in the manner we see fit, for we may infringe on someone's "intellectual property". We may think thoughts others have thought before, and what an awful theft that would be. Why, For the market to function, the government must grant monopolies on ideas. In general government granted monopolies are bad, but in this particular case...
- icebraining 13y ago
  That's an odd reply to a post that says "they should abolish patents (which is the best way)".
  - JamesArgo 13y ago
    I was agreeing with him with a bit of sarcasm, but it does seem (looking at it) that I was replying to him with sarcasm. I apologize. Patents make me so angry my brain deactivates.
melaby 13y ago
Alternatively they should ban drug marketing which eats up the lion's share of the budget, thereby reducing the cost of producing the drugs. Not to mention that there are other social factors such as imperialism that ended only 70 years ago. Indian firms should have huge R&D budgets and in order to get those budgets investors must see a potential return on their investments. In order for that to happen the Indian economy must grow and there should be more income with which Indians can pay for those drugs. In order for the economy to grow more money must be kept in the country and not allowed to be siphoned off by foreign companies. Indians have obviously benefited from foreign inventions, but then so have foreigners benefited from immigrants responsible for many of those inventions.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Indian firms should have huge R&D budgets and in order to get those budgets investors must see a potential return on their investments. (...) In order for the economy to grow more money must be kept in the country and not allowed to be siphoned off by foreign companies. How are you to attract foreign investment, if you limit the returns that leave the country?
  - melaby 13y ago
    With promises of greater returns in the future. It does not necessarily mean you take the money out of private hands, only that they can't take the money out of the country for a certain number of years or until certain economic benchmarks change.
unhappyhippie 13y ago
Although I agree with you that the premise of their defense is rather nonsensical, in this particular case (Novartis/Glivec) it was no socialistic move of policy but rather a prudent decision in clear-cut evergreening. This[1] columnist elaborates it very well, explaining how popular perception of the event is wrong on both sides. [1] http://swaminomics.org/west-should-learn-from-indias-high-patent-standards/ http://swaminomics.org/west-should-learn-from-indias-high-pa...

senthil_rajasek 13y ago

"Socialists like the present government will never understand a free market, if they want these expensive drugs for free, they have to pay for them somehow." Can you substantiate your claim that the present government in India is socialist and that they don't understand free markets? Also, the article does not talk about free drugs?

JamesArgo 13y ago

Ahh, to live in a free society, where men and woman can own their ideas and stop all others from thinking and acting on similar lines. What liberty we enjoy. How free we are. We own matter, energy and land, yet we can't use them in the manner we see fit, for we may infringe on someone's "intellectual property". We may think thoughts others have thought before, and what an awful theft that would be. Why, For the market to function, the government must grant monopolies on ideas. In general government granted monopolies are bad, but in this particular case...

icebraining 13y ago
That's an odd reply to a post that says "they should abolish patents (which is the best way)".
- JamesArgo 13y ago
  I was agreeing with him with a bit of sarcasm, but it does seem (looking at it) that I was replying to him with sarcasm. I apologize. Patents make me so angry my brain deactivates.

melaby 13y ago

Alternatively they should ban drug marketing which eats up the lion's share of the budget, thereby reducing the cost of producing the drugs. Not to mention that there are other social factors such as imperialism that ended only 70 years ago. Indian firms should have huge R&D budgets and in order to get those budgets investors must see a potential return on their investments. In order for that to happen the Indian economy must grow and there should be more income with which Indians can pay for those drugs. In order for the economy to grow more money must be kept in the country and not allowed to be siphoned off by foreign companies. Indians have obviously benefited from foreign inventions, but then so have foreigners benefited from immigrants responsible for many of those inventions.

icebraining 13y ago
Indian firms should have huge R&D budgets and in order to get those budgets investors must see a potential return on their investments. (...) In order for the economy to grow more money must be kept in the country and not allowed to be siphoned off by foreign companies. How are you to attract foreign investment, if you limit the returns that leave the country?
- melaby 13y ago
  With promises of greater returns in the future. It does not necessarily mean you take the money out of private hands, only that they can't take the money out of the country for a certain number of years or until certain economic benchmarks change.

unhappyhippie 13y ago

Although I agree with you that the premise of their defense is rather nonsensical, in this particular case (Novartis/Glivec) it was no socialistic move of policy but rather a prudent decision in clear-cut evergreening. This[1] columnist elaborates it very well, explaining how popular perception of the event is wrong on both sides. [1] http://swaminomics.org/west-should-learn-from-indias-high-patent-standards/ http://swaminomics.org/west-should-learn-from-indias-high-pa...