6 ms·

this is such a breakthrough in modern medicine. this is a CURE of a longstanding disease, a disease which cuts off years of life expectancy of it victims. the

this is such a breakthrough in modern medicine. this is a CURE of a longstanding disease, a disease which cuts off years of life expectancy of it victims. there are more of them incoming, Hep C soon have a multitude of awesome drugs covering it. competition means drug prices will come down. the current massive price is a blip. at the very worst until the patent expires. there is even more, cooler stuff in the pipelines right now. there is a leukemia drug that goes after a rare form of it - with survival rates in its patients now at 95+%. think about what this means. after a glut, modern medicinal research has kicked into high gear. the FDA has a fast track program now. 10 years from now we'll be living in a very different world.

zanny 12y ago
> 10 years from now we'll be living in a very different world. Only if you are rich enough to afford it. That is where the outrage comes from - in most of the world healthcare and a right to life is considered a human right. In the US, current IP rights and drug policy will enable the exploitation of anyone who gets any major disease for all their are worth and then you can hang them out to die without treatment. It isn't the fault of the drug manufacturers though, they are profit seeking and work in their investors interests, who gave millions over years or decades and expect returns. You can and should blame the legal framework that prevents free market drug manufacturing through monopoly patents that lets people die because they cannot afford new drugs to cure their ailments.
- adventured 12y ago
  There's no such thing as a right to own the productivity of other human beings. Even if the FDA provided a more efficient process, it would still cost hundreds of millions and take a decade to develop drugs like these. In what scenario should all of these scientists be working for free? And the equipment makers, and their employees; and on down the chain it goes. The only sane approach in the socialized medicine world, would be for the government to offer a one-time buyout for such breakthrough drugs. If your theory worked so well, socialized medicine countries would produce the most drug innovation and breakthroughs, their science and production would dwarf the US to such an immense degree it would put every pharma and biotech company in the US out of business rapidly. And yet, nothing of the sort has happened. Quite the opposite, the US has been the center of the pharma & biotech world for decades. The rich always subsidize breakthroughs, and their subsidization makes the next iterations affordable for the masses. The same pattern holds true in nearly everything.
- ps4fanboy 12y ago
  I have a business idea will you work on it for free?
- philwelch 12y ago
  Do the monopoly patents let people die because they can't afford the drugs, or do they save lives because they incentivize the research to create the drugs in the first place?
  - kethinov 12y ago
    It's possible for them to do both. It's also possible to imagine a system that does the good one without the bad one.
    - waps 12y ago
      Research : huge investment required. Very few patients (ie. voters) are clamoring for it. Very easy to cut as part of public policy. Treatment : not a huge cost (esp. not per-patient), but has to be bourne a billion times over. Extremely expensive in total (far, far more than research, but ...). Even tiny cuts will result in massive protests (see Europe every few weeks since 2009 or so). Various interests with large amount of people want to see this cost going up : docters, medical personnel, patients. Getting public money to do healthcare will result in next to no research, and ever more, ever less effective treatment. This is not to say there won't be advancements, just really, really slow ones. Because nobody really sees the potential (or sees it as bad to some extent, e.g. medical personnel) nobody will even miss the research. Also, people kind of like that only universities do the research, but never, ever bring drugs to patients, and only very rarely do they bring treatments to patients. Getting private money to healthcare runs afoul of one of the basic axioms of the free market : choice and competition. In medicine there is, in quite a few cases, no choice (as illustrated above. Hep C infected ? You have 2 choices : $100k or $100k, or death of course). It doesn't seem, economically speaking, that you can do both.
      - kethinov 12y ago
        That's not an economic argument, it's a political one. You're saying there's no political will to publicly fund research at current levels. I do agree with your analysis of the status quo, but that status quo can change just as soon as voter attitudes change.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  There is absolutely nothing preventing the government or non-profit organizations from developing drugs and selling them at a lower price. Nor is there any reason we can't implement some system to help subsidize people who can't afford health care. Patents are not the issue at all. Without patents the people who die because they can't afford health care would still be dead. But so would everyone else who was saved by the drug, which includes those people in other countries you mention, and people who benefit a decade later after the patent expires.
- pinaceae 12y ago
  disagree. the manufacturer has earned his right to those patents through original research. much unlike any other industry, pharma needs to prove its product are indeed working and safe. this is not sugar water. real science, to the core. the failure lies in the process afterwards. how healthcare is disbursed, how it is allocated. especially in the US. if a country negotiates a price, as a single payer, everything looks quite different. and curing Hep C? it is cheaper overall, in the longterm, to have productive tax payers who live a long, healthy life. paying net in, rather than needing constant care. big hope: alzheimers as the next big target. cancers will take longer, so many things lurking in that bucket term.

zanny 12y ago

> 10 years from now we'll be living in a very different world. Only if you are rich enough to afford it. That is where the outrage comes from - in most of the world healthcare and a right to life is considered a human right. In the US, current IP rights and drug policy will enable the exploitation of anyone who gets any major disease for all their are worth and then you can hang them out to die without treatment. It isn't the fault of the drug manufacturers though, they are profit seeking and work in their investors interests, who gave millions over years or decades and expect returns. You can and should blame the legal framework that prevents free market drug manufacturing through monopoly patents that lets people die because they cannot afford new drugs to cure their ailments.

adventured 12y ago
There's no such thing as a right to own the productivity of other human beings. Even if the FDA provided a more efficient process, it would still cost hundreds of millions and take a decade to develop drugs like these. In what scenario should all of these scientists be working for free? And the equipment makers, and their employees; and on down the chain it goes. The only sane approach in the socialized medicine world, would be for the government to offer a one-time buyout for such breakthrough drugs. If your theory worked so well, socialized medicine countries would produce the most drug innovation and breakthroughs, their science and production would dwarf the US to such an immense degree it would put every pharma and biotech company in the US out of business rapidly. And yet, nothing of the sort has happened. Quite the opposite, the US has been the center of the pharma & biotech world for decades. The rich always subsidize breakthroughs, and their subsidization makes the next iterations affordable for the masses. The same pattern holds true in nearly everything.
ps4fanboy 12y ago
I have a business idea will you work on it for free?
philwelch 12y ago
Do the monopoly patents let people die because they can't afford the drugs, or do they save lives because they incentivize the research to create the drugs in the first place?
- kethinov 12y ago
  It's possible for them to do both. It's also possible to imagine a system that does the good one without the bad one.
  - waps 12y ago
    Research : huge investment required. Very few patients (ie. voters) are clamoring for it. Very easy to cut as part of public policy. Treatment : not a huge cost (esp. not per-patient), but has to be bourne a billion times over. Extremely expensive in total (far, far more than research, but ...). Even tiny cuts will result in massive protests (see Europe every few weeks since 2009 or so). Various interests with large amount of people want to see this cost going up : docters, medical personnel, patients. Getting public money to do healthcare will result in next to no research, and ever more, ever less effective treatment. This is not to say there won't be advancements, just really, really slow ones. Because nobody really sees the potential (or sees it as bad to some extent, e.g. medical personnel) nobody will even miss the research. Also, people kind of like that only universities do the research, but never, ever bring drugs to patients, and only very rarely do they bring treatments to patients. Getting private money to healthcare runs afoul of one of the basic axioms of the free market : choice and competition. In medicine there is, in quite a few cases, no choice (as illustrated above. Hep C infected ? You have 2 choices : $100k or $100k, or death of course). It doesn't seem, economically speaking, that you can do both.
    - kethinov 12y ago
      That's not an economic argument, it's a political one. You're saying there's no political will to publicly fund research at current levels. I do agree with your analysis of the status quo, but that status quo can change just as soon as voter attitudes change.
Houshalter 12y ago
There is absolutely nothing preventing the government or non-profit organizations from developing drugs and selling them at a lower price. Nor is there any reason we can't implement some system to help subsidize people who can't afford health care. Patents are not the issue at all. Without patents the people who die because they can't afford health care would still be dead. But so would everyone else who was saved by the drug, which includes those people in other countries you mention, and people who benefit a decade later after the patent expires.
pinaceae 12y ago
disagree. the manufacturer has earned his right to those patents through original research. much unlike any other industry, pharma needs to prove its product are indeed working and safe. this is not sugar water. real science, to the core. the failure lies in the process afterwards. how healthcare is disbursed, how it is allocated. especially in the US. if a country negotiates a price, as a single payer, everything looks quite different. and curing Hep C? it is cheaper overall, in the longterm, to have productive tax payers who live a long, healthy life. paying net in, rather than needing constant care. big hope: alzheimers as the next big target. cancers will take longer, so many things lurking in that bucket term.