| The profit motive and medicines... on 08:33 - Feb 19 with 360 views | Guthrum |
On the surface, entirely laudable.
But there is a slight complication. Developing medicines is an extremely expensive and time-consuming process. Also requires concentrating a lot of talent in one place, or paying specialist sub-contractors. Many lines of research come to nothing in the end. It's not until they come up with an effective and widely-accepted drug that these companies get to pay off all the debt they have incurred during the research process, let alone making a profit (and thus attracting further investment).
Those intellectual property rights are the only asset those companies have. Take that away and there's no reason for them to exist. And, thereafter, nobody to develop those medicines.
It's a very tricky conundrum, for which I'm not sure there's an easy answer.
If, for example, the nations took 50% of their military budgets and put them into subsidising pharmaceuticals (and other branches of medicine) instead, that would make a huge difference. But could you really see that happening? |  |
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| The profit motive and medicines... on 08:44 - Feb 19 with 332 views | bluelagos |
The capitalist model isn't just to make money, it is to make as much money as possible. And it appears clear that the best way for the pharma companies to make as much money as possible is to retain the patents irrespective of how many deaths that causes.
Am not sure why anyone would be surprised at this. Business pretty much always puts profits ahead of human welfare. It is the nature of the beast.
And to answer your question, yes, clearly there is a greater good here than making shareholders of a few pharma companies ever wealthier. To argue otherwise is to put profit ahead of lives which to be blunt, is a pretty disgusting way of looking at things. |  |
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| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:07 - Feb 19 with 312 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| The profit motive and medicines... on 08:33 - Feb 19 by Guthrum |
On the surface, entirely laudable.
But there is a slight complication. Developing medicines is an extremely expensive and time-consuming process. Also requires concentrating a lot of talent in one place, or paying specialist sub-contractors. Many lines of research come to nothing in the end. It's not until they come up with an effective and widely-accepted drug that these companies get to pay off all the debt they have incurred during the research process, let alone making a profit (and thus attracting further investment).
Those intellectual property rights are the only asset those companies have. Take that away and there's no reason for them to exist. And, thereafter, nobody to develop those medicines.
It's a very tricky conundrum, for which I'm not sure there's an easy answer.
If, for example, the nations took 50% of their military budgets and put them into subsidising pharmaceuticals (and other branches of medicine) instead, that would make a huge difference. But could you really see that happening? |
It really should...one area where the state/wider society should be more involved. |  |
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| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:20 - Feb 19 with 296 views | StokieBlue |
It's more complicated than the quotes in that article make out. Developing medicine is extremely expensive and until governments put the money into the process instead of companies then the companies have to make the money back somehow otherwise they immediately are bankrupt.
There is certainly no justification for excessive profiteering on medicines though and that is something that needs to be seriously looked at. Just ignoring intellectual property isn't the way to do it though as that opens a can of worms with regards to all other intellectual property as well.
AZ have been good with regards to this as they will be selling their vaccine at cost price to developing nations.
SB |  |
| Avatar - IC410 - Tadpoles Nebula |
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| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:31 - Feb 19 with 286 views | bluelagos |
| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:20 - Feb 19 by StokieBlue |
It's more complicated than the quotes in that article make out. Developing medicine is extremely expensive and until governments put the money into the process instead of companies then the companies have to make the money back somehow otherwise they immediately are bankrupt.
There is certainly no justification for excessive profiteering on medicines though and that is something that needs to be seriously looked at. Just ignoring intellectual property isn't the way to do it though as that opens a can of worms with regards to all other intellectual property as well.
AZ have been good with regards to this as they will be selling their vaccine at cost price to developing nations.
SB |
The capitalist purist will state that only the profit motive can provide the solution here, which basically implies that people are only motivated by profit.
Now of course people like me, you, guthers, bankster can be motivated all we want by the greater good, but we don't have the knowledge, skills and/or infrastructure behind us to create and manufacture vaccines for the greater good.
But as you imply, governments clearly do. And unless governments step up, we could be in the hands of big business for good or bad. What happens if there is a new mutation and only 1 company has a vaccine? £100 a shot? £1k a shot? £10k a shot?
Lots of strategic issues are often taken out of the hands of the private sector (Military, energy, telecoms, transport) because we recognise that leaving them in the hands of the private sector could leave us up sh1t creak. As a minimum we seek to curtail their excesses (Ofcom, Ofgen etc.)
Think there is a huge exposure to profiteering Parma companies who are in a position where at best, they will sell to the highest bidder first and at worst, will exploit their position for financial gain. Neither sits well with me when such positions will lead to additional and needless deaths... | |
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| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:36 - Feb 19 with 282 views | StokieBlue |
| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:31 - Feb 19 by bluelagos |
The capitalist purist will state that only the profit motive can provide the solution here, which basically implies that people are only motivated by profit.
Now of course people like me, you, guthers, bankster can be motivated all we want by the greater good, but we don't have the knowledge, skills and/or infrastructure behind us to create and manufacture vaccines for the greater good.
But as you imply, governments clearly do. And unless governments step up, we could be in the hands of big business for good or bad. What happens if there is a new mutation and only 1 company has a vaccine? £100 a shot? £1k a shot? £10k a shot?
Lots of strategic issues are often taken out of the hands of the private sector (Military, energy, telecoms, transport) because we recognise that leaving them in the hands of the private sector could leave us up sh1t creak. As a minimum we seek to curtail their excesses (Ofcom, Ofgen etc.)
Think there is a huge exposure to profiteering Parma companies who are in a position where at best, they will sell to the highest bidder first and at worst, will exploit their position for financial gain. Neither sits well with me when such positions will lead to additional and needless deaths... |
What do you propose though?
Many medicines take billions of pounds to research and develop and sometimes they don't even work. Do we want to reallocate taxpayers money into a nationalised medicine research and production department? I don't have a problem with that if that is what people would like their money spent on. It would provide both scientific and manufacturing jobs for people in the UK.
What would happen when we did create a good medicine? I suspect we would sell it internationally to make profit for the UK taxpayer. Once that happens aren't we back in the same boat?
It's a complicated problem because the expense in research and development is huge. The average cost of developing a single medicine is apparently around 3bn USD. That's just one medicine of a huge number available and required.
SB | |
| Avatar - IC410 - Tadpoles Nebula |
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| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:39 - Feb 19 with 276 views | bluelagos |
| The profit motive and medicines... on 09:36 - Feb 19 by StokieBlue |
What do you propose though?
Many medicines take billions of pounds to research and develop and sometimes they don't even work. Do we want to reallocate taxpayers money into a nationalised medicine research and production department? I don't have a problem with that if that is what people would like their money spent on. It would provide both scientific and manufacturing jobs for people in the UK.
What would happen when we did create a good medicine? I suspect we would sell it internationally to make profit for the UK taxpayer. Once that happens aren't we back in the same boat?
It's a complicated problem because the expense in research and development is huge. The average cost of developing a single medicine is apparently around 3bn USD. That's just one medicine of a huge number available and required.
SB |
Govt funded research, outsourced manufacture, non profit sales to the developing world and all profits ploughed back into the national exchecquer.
Got to run - not avoided the come backs! | |
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