Fixing the pharmeceutical patent problem

[bascule]

Recently I have been thinking about the problems with the pharmeceutical industry, resulting in a high cost of drugs which, in addition to being a problem back home, means medical problems which are solvable using expensive medications run rampant in 3rd world countries.

 

For example, the world's biggest killer is HIV.

 

Problem: HIV is hard to cure! Despite enormous amounts of research spanning more than two decades, nothing close to a cure has been found, only expensive treatment regiments. New research is always promising, but none of it is anywhere near practical in terms of coming up with some sort of cure, or at least vaccination.

 

Solution: Look for ways to prevent infection, at least in Africa. After all, only a scant percentage of people worldwide can afford HIV treatment, and thus 4000 people die every single day. If you can prevent people from getting infected in the first place, you can greatly diminish the number of people HIV kills.

 

Problem: Herpes sores provide an ideal transmission vector for HIV. 50% of Africans have genital herpes.

 

Solution: Treat herpes. Drugs like Valtrex can force the disease into its dormant state where it lies hidden deep in the nerves of the genital region.

 

Problem: Valtrex is patented by GlaxoSmithKline.

 

Solution: Illegal generic drug producers violate GlaxoSmithKline's patent

 

Problem: They can't supply the entire country of Africa

 

(...)

 

Seriously, capitalism is failing here, and 4,000 people die every day. So, I could sit here and harp on capitalism, or I could offer a solution.

 

Solution: change the way the entire pharmeceutical industry works.

 

Here's what I'd suggest: First, abolish pharmeceutical patents.

 

Problem: How do the pharmeceuticals make money to fund research? Patents let them rape the public for a short period of time, recouping the losses for their research. Once a drug goes generic, production becomes a cutthroat business with paper thin margins, so the only way to be a profitable drug producer is to either be an innovative researcher (in search of patents) or a cutthroat businessman who can undercut the competition (generic producer)

 

Solution: An international prize fund. This model has successfully motivated the private sector to conduct a successful spaceflight and is being employed by the Immortalist movement to find a cure to aging. The Methuselah Mouse prize is being offered to the first research team who can produce a mouse in a state of "negligable senescence"

 

Graduated prizes for accomplishing various steps towards an overall goal could be awared as well. The important point is: once a solution to these problems has been found, the knowledge enters the public domain. The cutthroat generic producers can worry about the actual execution. The research teams assume the risk of knowing that if they fail to outcompete everyone else, all their investment will be for nothing. But they also know that if they reach one of the goals with a prize attached, they don't have to rely on production and distribution to recoup the costs of R&D: they get their prize immediately and that's that.

 

I think this same model can extend beyond pharmeceuticals (and with the X-Prize as the most successful demonstration of this model, that's ostensibly the case)

[swansont]

So you want all of the taxpayers to fund the research, to create the "prizes." You still have the same problem. Poor countries can't fund the prizes to the same extent that rich ones can. Why should they benefit from the results? Right now, I subsidize customers who pay less for drugs by paying more. Under your view, the drugs would be less but my taxes would be higher. How does this benefit me?

 

The underlying concept there is this: why do people feel entitled to medicines? I am not entitled to consumer goods, like an automobile; if I can't afford one I don't get one. If I have to get a cheaper model or used car I do that instead of the really expensive one. What is inherently different about medical care?

[Sisyphus]

What is inherently different about medical care?

 

To expand the question (and maybe help answer it), what is different about law enforcement and fire departments that everyone feels entitled to equal services in these areas?

[Skye]

Reminds me of when I was a kid and the local (voluntary) fire dept. would only get called out for serious fires. Otherwise you could put you name down to book the firetruck. Once when there was a fire coming through our property we did and I got to live out my fireman fantasy.

 

As far as all this goes, I'd be pretty careful of getting rid of IP laws, they've been pretty good to the West. Getting rid of them is expecting a bit much of altruism. 'Finding cures' is pretty trifling, it's the plants, regulatory hurdles and getting the name out there that costs the big ones.

[swansont]

To expand the question (and maybe help answer it), what is different about law enforcement and fire departments that everyone feels entitled to equal services in these areas?

 

Because they pay for it in their taxes, maybe? (some parts of law enforcement are run like a consumer business, e.g. if you have an alarm, you have to pay a mandatory registration fee to have the alarm monitored by the police) Not everybody gets equal service, anyway. There are difference relating to the tax base.

 

But this is different, I think. The tone of the OP is that people are entitled to the medicine that was invented by some other group of people, but without paying for it, or at least not paying market rates. We don't mandate that people have to be police officers and then not decide to pay them. You have to offer up a salary large enough to attract people to take the job.

[jackson33]

on one hand you infer a pharmaceutical company spent the billions it takes to formulate a drug and then you infer they are greedy to request something in return for their efforts.

 

i would suggest AIDs in Africa is a little more complicated than the herpes sores. its more along the line of accepted sexual activity. i would also suggest the government of any country is qualified to obtain large quantities of any drug it wishes to. they know, you know and i know this would not solve any problem and if anything would only exaggerate the problem. most of those that receive some relief, are the most active in spreading to the rest of society. much as obesity is a problem of recipients of welfare, in the industrialized socialistic nations, such as mine.

[budullewraagh]

Just to put things in perspective:

 

Merck spent $1.2 billion and several years developing a drug, the name of which I have forgotten since hearing about it during an o-chem class. The drug did everything but pass as safe for the public. Many years and $1.2 billion lost means Merck has to raise prices for other things in order to stay in business.

 

As well, there's also the problem of people rape-suing companies to death. It's for this reason that no pharmaceutical company currently is trying to make drugs specifically for the pregnant and elderly.

 

After making out like bandits (more like trying to pull a profit) for a few years, every pharmaceutical company in existence replicates it and the prices all reduce to nothing.

[bascule]

So you want all of the taxpayers to fund the research, to create the "prizes."

 

Or the victims of a particular disease who want a cure can donate to the international fund.

 

For example, the M-Prize (the prize for the first research group to produce a mouse in a state of negligable senescence) is already to $4.1 million.

 

It could be a combination of whoever wants to donate. Nations could. Corporations could. Individuals could.

 

The goal here is to change the dynamics and goal system of pharmeceutical research. If there were, say, a trillion dollar prize for the cure to HIV, or to cure to cancer, how would that change the dynamics of how pharmeceuticals operate?

 

You still have the same problem. Poor countries can't fund the prizes to the same extent that rich ones can. Why should they benefit from the results?

 

Because people are suffering and dying?

[swansont]

Or the victims of a particular disease who want a cure can donate to the international fund.

 

For example, the M-Prize (the prize for the first research group to produce a mouse in a state of negligable senescence) is already to $4.1 million.

 

It could be a combination of whoever wants to donate. Nations could. Corporations could. Individuals could.

 

The goal here is to change the dynamics and goal system of pharmeceutical research. If there were, say, a trillion dollar prize for the cure to HIV, or to cure to cancer, how would that change the dynamics of how pharmeceuticals operate?

 

 

 

Because people are suffering and dying?

 

You are free to do that now, and so are corporations and nations. And they do. People contribute to various causes they deem good. But there are a lot of good causes, and people are suffering and dying all over the place. I should get to decide where my charitible contributions go.

 

You've singled out pharma as "raping" the consumer, but what about doctors? Medical equipment companies? Shall we dictate a maximum salary on doctors? Should makers of patent-bearing diagnostic equipment be forced to be non-profit?

 

You've also used HIV as your example, and that's a disease that is very preventable. The major emphasis should be on education. Prevention rather than cure.

[bascule]

You are free to do that now, and so are corporations and nations. And they do. People contribute to various causes they deem good. But there are a lot of good causes, and people are suffering and dying all over the place. I should get to decide where my charitible contributions go.

 

There's nothing that necessitates a government subsidy for a prize fund, and traditionally such prize funds have existed as privately funded non-profit corporations. Perhaps I'm suggesting something more radical than necessary, but I'm curious as to why there is no "H-Prize" (for HIV) or "C-Prize" (for cancer). Those are two causes I'd certainly be willing to donate to.

 

You've singled out pharma as "raping" the consumer, but what about doctors? Medical equipment companies? Shall we dictate a maximum salary on doctors? Should makers of patent-bearing diagnostic equipment be forced to be non-profit?

 

I'm not sure if you've read my previous views on the matter, but I certainly think the present American healthcare system is in a deplorable state. Perhaps the worst offenders are the health insurance companies, which provide the framework for the rest of the system to leech off of. The American healthcare system has received substandard ratings in terms of industrialized nations while consuming the highest percentage of an industrialized nation's GDP in order to do so (and America, having the world's highest GDP, is by simple deduction the world's largest medical spender)

 

You've also used HIV as your example, and that's a disease that is very preventable. The major emphasis should be on education. Prevention rather than cure.

 

Unfortunately, in Africa that's a difficult proposition. For example in the Congo you have death squads exterminating the male population of rival factions, raping all of the women, then sticking guns up their vaginas and firing them, causing a condition known as a fistula (in which a gunshot wound causes urinary and possibly bowel incontinence). Read this story if you are unfamiliar with the conditions:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15704030/site/newsweek/

 

Conditions are deplorable, and "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge" attitude simply isn't going to cut it over there. I think that attitude is about as naive as assuming abstinence education will cut the teen pregnancy rate in America...