Making the case why profits are necessary for medical innovation:What the protesters don’t seem to get is that if they get their way and profits are limited, the pharmaceutical companies will not be able to spend the time or money necessary to find cures for cancer, Parkinson, Huntington’s, ALS, muscular dystrophy, etc. And those of use living with these diseases will pay the cost, we will not have the experimental options that we have now. We all pray that one day someone will find a cure for our disease and if the pharmaceutical companies are doing it just for profit, that’s OK with me as long as we get a cure. I don’t expect them to do it for nothing, do you? Can’t pay your employees or investors that way.What these protesters need are a few classes in economics. Maybe then they would understand why corporations are in business and why they are needed for our economy to flourish.BTW, for those who think the pharmaceutical companies are these evil corporations just looking to make a profit on the backs of the infirm, I know for a fact they have programs to aid those who can’t afford their drugs. My brother-in-law did not have health insurance but was given an experimental drug that prolonged his life 5 years (and counting) longer than he was originally given. And because of that experimental drug, he was recently given the next generation of the drug to help him now that he is out of remission.(via)
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posted November 23, 2009 at 4:44 pm
The drug companies don’t do all that much to advance real cures under the current system. They spend more on advertising than research. A large percentage of the drugs they do develop are not novel. Most of them are knock-offs of very old technologies which offer little to no real gain in safety or effectiveness.
They’re designed to steal market share away from other companies and to shift people away from generics. One example – most of the high-power statin drugs which have come out in recent years. They’re just the 15th iteration of a very old molecule. They’re much more expensive and while they are also much more potent, they tend to have greater toxicity at the same time. Most of the basic science which allows drug companies to develop molecules is carried out at the public expense, and the whole thing is rigged to protect the companies from any competition. They can charge our seniors $300 a month for the same drug that the Brits pay maybe $75 for (a level which still gives a nice profit).
In many cases, the cost of a pill represents a 10,000 percent markup over the cost of the ingredients, and this goes on many years after the R&D costs are recouped and billions of dollars in profits generated. Even when the drug goes off patent and generics should bring prices down, they play games with frivolous lawsuits to block generic competition for years afterward. There is more government could do to aid development, such as having a clear-cut and less burdensom approval system, but I dispute the notion that price-gouging is buying us any great innovation.
posted November 23, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Last time I checked, profits meant what you earn after you’ve paid all business expenses. For pharmaceutical companies, surely reasearch is one of those business expenses and profits are what they earn beyond that.
Overseas, (ie India) you can get the same meds as in the US for a tenth of the cost or less and the companies are still turning a profit off those. So the argument that the companies need obscene profits to fund research or we’ll all die is utterly fallacious.
Another disadvantage of drug co. research that has the goal of profit is that it precludes science and research for its own sake, yet science and research for its own sake is often where some stunning breakthroughs come from.
posted November 24, 2009 at 6:11 am
It sounds like the need for an economics refresher course comes from the corporate apologist blogger. Again.
Thanks to kenneth & John for providing a reasoned counterpoint to the fairy tales provided through Reformed theology.
posted November 24, 2009 at 6:14 am
Obama would kill his own unwanted grandchildren.
By means of modernity.
No, he won’t stifle innovation.
posted November 25, 2009 at 3:31 am
Michelle, there is more than one kind of medical innovation. One is the pharmaceuticals you are talking about, and the high-tech machines. The other is the skill of the doctor to cure the payment despite the absence of the latest and greatest technology has to offer. Don’t get me wrong, we have some terrific doctors in the USA. But they don’t hold a candle in McGyver-level skills you can find in places like rural Mexico and a World Vision funded center in the Philippines where I worked many years ago. High tech is not the only way to get well, for most people. And we have had our system in place a really long time to still not have cures for the diseases you listed.