It is a harrowing proposition: that in trying to control drug prices for 67 million Medicare patients now, we might inadvertently prevent the development of future drugs that could save lives. Implied, if not stated outright, is that we’re putting a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s or some other intractable disease in jeopardy.
But we have good reasons to believe that the current policy won’t have such a trade-off any time soon. For one, pharma is hugely profitable, and these negotiated prices, while potentially chipping away at profit margins, should hardly entirely dampen the incentive to innovate, according to a couple of key studies of the industry. Two, if we are worried about future innovation, we should be focused on making it cheaper to develop drugs – and this is actually one area where AI is showing promise. By identifying the best candidates for possible treatments early in the research process, we could speed up development and continue to reduce costs — without losing out on tomorrow’s breakthroughs. …
Without price controls only the rich will be able to afford those “miracle” cures anyway.
This hits the point already. Look at those weight loss drugs that help people lose weight and are needed by certain other people.
Look at all the celebrities all of a sudden on them and regular people’s insurance won’t cover them. The regular folks who need them have trouble getting them as a result.
FTFY…
Big Pharma claims lower prices will mean giving up miracle
medicationsexecutive pay and bonuses.Haha no they meant what they said.
They’re not giving up their pay/bonuses.
The correct answer is neither.
Miracle drugs are almost exclusively funded, or heavily subsidized, by the public sector. Typically through NIH grants, or other public funding mechanisms through the University system.
R&D budgets for a big pharma go to things like reformulating existing brand name drugs, to prevent them going generic as they are supposed to under current law. Or other high return, reduced effort, drugs i.e. new dick pills, narcotics, etc.
Executive pay and bonuses are not going anywhere, no matter what happens with these drug prices. They will cut their company to the bone, and then collude with private equity to take them private and gut it, before they ever considered cutting down their bonuses or stock options.
Aren’t most of the RND costs paid for through government grants and donations…
shush! ^the ^peasants ^don’t ^need ^to ^know ^that!
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https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368538/medicare-drug-prices-pharma-negotiations-innovation
The idea that better drugs will be discovered by AI is laughable, though. It can help the search, but it can’t predict the trial outcomes well. The system is too complex, and we don’t have the data.
Seems like a good reason to nationalize the industry.
It pretty much already is. All major drug discoveries this century received at least as much public funding as private.
And despite helping to foot the bill no money ends up going back to the public.
Assuming lower prices were mandated in the future, what is their alternative? Develop zero new medications and subsist on the current drugs they offer with soon to expire patents? I doubt their competitors will be sitting idly by waiting for their eventual demise. Their argument is so superficial.
I doubt their competitors will be sitting idly by waiting for their eventual demise
That’s why you do M&As with your profits until there aren’t any competitors left
half of budgets for pharma companies is spent on marketing. Discourage that and they will be forced to spend more on R&D.
You can pass a law to ban pharma commercials on the grounds that prescriptions should be prescribed by doctors. You could also simply tax marketing spending as though it were the same as profits, applying corporate taxes to marketing spending.
Even if they’re right, that just means I won’t be able to afford those “Miracle Medications” anyway…
Wolves explain why eating sheep is actually good for the sheep. If elves are forced to become vegetarians, the sheep will suffer more…
Right. Because a miracle medication wouldn’t make a ton of money anyway what with it being a fucking miracle medication.
How could they possibly derive profits from drugs nearly wholly theorized and funded through government grants? Think of the shareholders and their inability to siphon your taxes into their pockets! Think about them often, especially when you pass by their offices visible through brittle glass. Let them know your feelings.
They aren’t wholly theorized and funded by the government.
By far the most expensive step of drug development is the phase 3 clinical trial, the final stage before a drug can be released. The government doesn’t fund those at all. Government mostly funds pre-clinical trials (ie in animals or tissue culture) which are way cheaper.
The average government grant for a biomed research proposal is nearly $600,000.
The average phase 3 clinical trial costs $20 million.
Should be a non-issue for them to fund the billions in research grants afforded to universities, then. Privatizing profits and socializing the initial investment. Just saying, I’d like a hundred extra dollars per year. Were these entities so beneficent as to avoid bankrupting people forced to use their medications, I might feel differently.
Government-funded research is typically basic science research. It results in general knowledge that is usable by anyone, ie it does not support a specific product. No pharma company will pay for something that helps competitors as much (or possibly more) than it helps them.
For example, government-funded research showed how injected mRNA could be directly absorbed and expressed by human cells in tissue culture. That remarkable discovery can be used by any pharma company to make a product. So pharma companies started developing various mRNA vaccines, and testing them in humans (Moderna, Pfizer, etc). But no pharma company would have funded the initial research that showed this was possible.
Until they can cure cancer they have no leverage
