Does Drug Development Require Profit?

[Rhea]

Two items over at electoral-vote.com blog today regarding Biden's negotiations with Europe:

Vaccine patents: Many people in Europe want the U.S. to waive patent rights on the COVID-19 vaccines to allow any company anywhere to produce them. Pfizer and Moderna are wildly against doing this and have said if these patents can be suspended, then there will be more suspensions of patents in the future and no drug company will do research any more. The U.S. has so far backed the drug companies. How will this play out?



Cost of drugs: The U.S. often complains that Europe doesn't pay enough for drugs, leaving U.S. companies reliant on U.S. customers to keep the companies healthy. But progressives want Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies to lower U.S. prices. If the U.S. and the E.U. both get low prices, will the drug companies remain in business?

So if big pharma in America won't make drugs, who will?

Well, what about US Government labs?

Some thoughts:

Big Pharma:

• employs lots of smart people, who would still be smart without jobs at that place.
• pays large salaries to executives
• pays big dividends to shareholders
• will only work on high profit solutions, even if the low-profit items are a huge boost to the economy

Government

• can employ the same smart people. (strangely bimodal arguments about whether government jobs are not worth taking versus government workers having it easy with fabulous retirement)
• doesn't have to pay huge salaries to executives
• doesn't have to pay anything at all to shareholders.
• can use the difference to attract and retain the smart people
• receives direct dividends (unspent medicaid) for any discovery that helps the nation's people, even when they can't pay

It seems like the government lab system has proven itself time and again, and that it is counter to its charter to protect the interests of a few rich people over the betterment of the whole.

 

[J842P]

The United States already has a mixed public, private biomedical research system. The real, scientific heavy-lifting is mostly publicly funded through the NIH and NSF, and occurs at Universities.

I guess the idea is that we put huge regulatory obstacles in front of gettin a therapeutic agent into human beings, and thus, we use the private sector for the last mile and since it is incredibly expensive, the expect to make a lot of money to recoup costs and make a profit.

 

[Rhea]

The United States already has a mixed public, private biomedical research system. The real, scientific heavy-lifting is mostly publicly funded through the NIH and NSF, and occurs at Universities.

I guess the idea is that we put huge regulatory obstacles in front of gettin a therapeutic agent into human beings, and thus, we use the private sector for the last mile and since it is incredibly expensive, the expect to make a lot of money to recoup costs and make a profit.

All understandable - except the need for the profit. If the government did the last mile, and recouped their expenses, but without the profit, we would be better off.

 

[untermensche]

Taking the profit motive out of the process will make the process more honest.

It takes 2 positive trials to show efficacy to get a drug approved.

A drug like Prozac, an anti-depressant, required 9 trials to have 2 with positive results.

Is it all that effective?

Anti-depressants have as high as a 30% placebo effect.

 

[Rhea]

Taking the profit motive out of the process will make the process more honest.

It takes 2 positive trials to show efficacy to get a drug approved.

A drug like Prozac, an anti-depressant, required 9 trials to have 2 with positive results.

Is it all that effective?

Anti-depressants have as high as a 30% placebo effect.

That’s a great point. There’s the overall benefit to the economy (keeping more people healthy is good). But yes, the profit motive drives a lot of bad behavior, leading to things like pushing opiods or hiding negative test results.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The existence of drug companies doesn't stop the government from doing it.

If government can do an adequate job they should simply demonstrate they can by doing it.

 

[Rhea]

The existence of drug companies doesn't stop the government from doing it.

If government can do an adequate job they should simply demonstrate they can by doing it.

Which I think we should - needs to get pastt the barrier of funding that is lobbied hard against by …. Big pharma.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Two items over at electoral-vote.com blog today regarding Biden's negotiations with Europe:

Vaccine patents: Many people in Europe want the U.S. to waive patent rights on the COVID-19 vaccines to allow any company anywhere to produce them. Pfizer and Moderna are wildly against doing this and have said if these patents can be suspended, then there will be more suspensions of patents in the future and no drug company will do research any more. The U.S. has so far backed the drug companies. How will this play out?



Cost of drugs: The U.S. often complains that Europe doesn't pay enough for drugs, leaving U.S. companies reliant on U.S. customers to keep the companies healthy. But progressives want Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies to lower U.S. prices. If the U.S. and the E.U. both get low prices, will the drug companies remain in business?

So if big pharma in America won't make drugs, who will?

Well, what about US Government labs?

Some thoughts:

Big Pharma:

• employs lots of smart people, who would still be smart without jobs at that place.
• pays large salaries to executives
• pays big dividends to shareholders
• will only work on high profit solutions, even if the low-profit items are a huge boost to the economy

Government

• can employ the same smart people. (strangely bimodal arguments about whether government jobs are not worth taking versus government workers having it easy with fabulous retirement)
• doesn't have to pay huge salaries to executives
• doesn't have to pay anything at all to shareholders.
• can use the difference to attract and retain the smart people
• receives direct dividends (unspent medicaid) for any discovery that helps the nation's people, even when they can't pay

It seems like the government lab system has proven itself time and again, and that it is counter to its charter to protect the interests of a few rich people over the betterment of the whole.

I don't know the answer to your question. However, my feeling is that the current vaccine makers: pfizer, Moderna and AstraZenca saved our economy. They saved millions of lives. I'm not an expert here in the least. But they did in 12 months which historically took three or four years. Imagine if we were still a couple years away from a vaccine? Its hard to imagine. I think that whatever worked this time around we can't mess with. Unfortunately, there are more Covid like plagues coming. The experts say that we're going to experience more outbreaks in the future. I don't think that we should mess with what worked.

 

[untermensche]

The existence of drug companies doesn't stop the government from doing it.

If government can do an adequate job they should simply demonstrate they can by doing it.

The government could easily do it.

And do it cheaper.

The government is prevented from doing it by the Congress.

And the Congress is bribed to not do it by the entire corporate machinery that wants a highly profitable private business to get insider information from and to invest in.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The existence of drug companies doesn't stop the government from doing it.

If government can do an adequate job they should simply demonstrate they can by doing it.

The government could easily do it.

And do it cheaper.

The government is prevented from doing it by the Congress.

And the Congress is bribed to not do it by the entire corporate machinery that wants a highly profitable private business to get insider information from and to invest in.

The government rarely manages to do things cheaper.

 

[untermensche]

The existence of drug companies doesn't stop the government from doing it.

If government can do an adequate job they should simply demonstrate they can by doing it.

The government could easily do it.

And do it cheaper.

The government is prevented from doing it by the Congress.

And the Congress is bribed to not do it by the entire corporate machinery that wants a highly profitable private business to get insider information from and to invest in.

The government rarely manages to do things cheaper.

Medicare is delivered cheaper than for-profit health insurance.

What do you think profit is in terms of health insurance?

It is money taken from the system and not used for anybodies healthcare.

 

[ZiprHead]

The existence of drug companies doesn't stop the government from doing it.

If government can do an adequate job they should simply demonstrate they can by doing it.

The government could easily do it.

And do it cheaper.

The government is prevented from doing it by the Congress.

And the Congress is bribed to not do it by the entire corporate machinery that wants a highly profitable private business to get insider information from and to invest in.

The government rarely manages to do things cheaper.

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/ofk74gpgnLA[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Rhea]

That video is so illuminating. And is exactly the information (from other sources) that sparked this discussion.

The claim that “government is never cheaper” has been disproven so many times, but there is a strong lobby to keep the myth alive so people will continue to give welfare to the people in charge of giant corporations.

 

[bilby]

Two items over at electoral-vote.com blog today regarding Biden's negotiations with Europe:

Vaccine patents: Many people in Europe want the U.S. to waive patent rights on the COVID-19 vaccines to allow any company anywhere to produce them. Pfizer and Moderna are wildly against doing this and have said if these patents can be suspended, then there will be more suspensions of patents in the future and no drug company will do research any more. The U.S. has so far backed the drug companies. How will this play out?



Cost of drugs: The U.S. often complains that Europe doesn't pay enough for drugs, leaving U.S. companies reliant on U.S. customers to keep the companies healthy. But progressives want Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies to lower U.S. prices. If the U.S. and the E.U. both get low prices, will the drug companies remain in business?

So if big pharma in America won't make drugs, who will?

Well, what about US Government labs?

Some thoughts:

Big Pharma:

• employs lots of smart people, who would still be smart without jobs at that place.
• pays large salaries to executives
• pays big dividends to shareholders
• will only work on high profit solutions, even if the low-profit items are a huge boost to the economy

Government

• can employ the same smart people. (strangely bimodal arguments about whether government jobs are not worth taking versus government workers having it easy with fabulous retirement)
• doesn't have to pay huge salaries to executives
• doesn't have to pay anything at all to shareholders.
• can use the difference to attract and retain the smart people
• receives direct dividends (unspent medicaid) for any discovery that helps the nation's people, even when they can't pay

It seems like the government lab system has proven itself time and again, and that it is counter to its charter to protect the interests of a few rich people over the betterment of the whole.

I don't know the answer to your question. However, my feeling is that the current vaccine makers: pfizer, Moderna and AstraZenca saved our economy. They saved millions of lives. I'm not an expert here in the least. But they did in 12 months which historically took three or four years. Imagine if we were still a couple years away from a vaccine? Its hard to imagine. I think that whatever worked this time around we can't mess with. Unfortunately, there are more Covid like plagues coming. The experts say that we're going to experience more outbreaks in the future. I don't think that we should mess with what worked.

The VAST majority of R&D funding for the AstraZeneca vaccine came from government sources, with most of the rest from charitable trusts (mostly the Wellcome Foundation).

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.08.21255103v1.full.pdf

The research work was largely done by Oxford University.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I don't know the answer to your question. However, my feeling is that the current vaccine makers: pfizer, Moderna and AstraZenca saved our economy. They saved millions of lives. I'm not an expert here in the least. But they did in 12 months which historically took three or four years. Imagine if we were still a couple years away from a vaccine? Its hard to imagine. I think that whatever worked this time around we can't mess with. Unfortunately, there are more Covid like plagues coming. The experts say that we're going to experience more outbreaks in the future. I don't think that we should mess with what worked.

The VAST majority of R&D funding for the AstraZeneca vaccine came from government sources, with most of the rest from charitable trusts (mostly the Wellcome Foundation).

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.08.21255103v1.full.pdf

Money that was extremely well spent!

 

[bilby]

I don't know the answer to your question. However, my feeling is that the current vaccine makers: pfizer, Moderna and AstraZenca saved our economy. They saved millions of lives. I'm not an expert here in the least. But they did in 12 months which historically took three or four years. Imagine if we were still a couple years away from a vaccine? Its hard to imagine. I think that whatever worked this time around we can't mess with. Unfortunately, there are more Covid like plagues coming. The experts say that we're going to experience more outbreaks in the future. I don't think that we should mess with what worked.

The VAST majority of R&D funding for the AstraZeneca vaccine came from government sources, with most of the rest from charitable trusts (mostly the Wellcome Foundation).

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.08.21255103v1.full.pdf

Money that was extremely well spent!

And which doesn't justify the granting of exclusive marketing rights to a private corporation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The government rarely manages to do things cheaper.

Medicare is delivered cheaper than for-profit health insurance.

What do you think profit is in terms of health insurance?

It is money taken from the system and not used for anybodies healthcare.

The left loves to claim this, but there are multiple factors involved:

1) No sales costs.

2) Bill payment is outsourced to the IRS and thus not on the books.

3) They force facilities to accept lower reimbursements.

4) And despite this they clearly aren't doing it the cheapest--observe the medicare advantage plans. That's private industry providing medicare for less than the government can.

 

[untermensche]

The government rarely manages to do things cheaper.

Medicare is delivered cheaper than for-profit health insurance.

What do you think profit is in terms of health insurance?

It is money taken from the system and not used for anybodies healthcare.

The left loves to claim this, but there are multiple factors involved:

1) No sales costs.

A plus. Also no money taken out called profit

2) Bill payment is outsourced to the IRS and thus not on the books.

A plus.

3) They force facilities to accept lower reimbursements.

A plus.

4) And despite this they clearly aren't doing it the cheapest--observe the medicare advantage plans. That's private industry providing medicare for less than the government can.

Medicare replacement plans are not Medicare.

Allowing the replacement plans makes Medicare worse. I agree.

 

[Rhea]

4) And despite this they clearly aren't doing it the cheapest--observe the medicare advantage plans. That's private industry providing medicare for less than the government can.

I don’t think that is accurate.

Advantage plans are a plan to get extra benefits, and the Medicare program pays Medicare Advantage insurers a monthly fee per enrollee to cover the cost of carrying their beneficiaries.

Medicare advantage is an add-on upgrade made necessary by the Republican sandbagging of the Medicare system.

 

[southernhybrid]

While Advantage Plans are private insurance plans, they are heavily subsidized by the government. I've had one for the past year and a half and I'm already considering going back to traditional M'care, but that means choosing a private insurance company for drug coverage again as well as a supplement if I don't want large copays. My premiums would more than double. I would also lose my dental, vision and hearing coverage, which isn't covered by traditional M'care. Medicare is far from a perfect program and there are plenty of things that it doesn't cover. But, we were talking about drugs......

I have mixed feelings about the government manufacturing all of our drugs. I do think that CEO salaries are a crime these days considering how extravagant they have become, compared to the workers who work in these companies, but sometimes government isn't always cost effective or well run either.

Perhaps a better alternative would be to have the government pay most of the cost of developing a drug with the expectation that the drug would be priced fairly, still leaving a reasonable profit for the company.

Maybe we need a better balance. I'm thinking about the Alzheimer's drug that just got FDA approval. A lot of doctors are very angry about this because the evidence really doesn't support that this new drug is going to be any more effective than the previous drugs that were supposed to slow down the progress of AD. Having had many patients on those drugs while I was still working, I tend to think they were all worthless. I've read numerous articles about this new drug and it makes me suspicious of the FDA. Perhaps we are just so desperate to find something to treat AD, that the FDA is afraid not to approve such a drug, but it does make one wonder if somebody at the FDA is getting kickbacks or if the FDA is simply ineffective. I have no idea what's really going on, but something ain't right.

Both private corporations and governments are certainly capable of becoming corrupt, incompetent etc. It's a human problem when it comes down to it, is is not? And, money does motivate a lot of people, for better or worse.

I've worked in both government and privately owned health care organizations. Some of the government organizations were very well run, while others were terrible. Some of the private organizations were well run while others only cared about profit, so they took advantage of and sometimes abused Medicare guidelines to make more money.

I don't think it would be simple to close down all the drug corporations and have all drugs developed by the government. But, somehow, drugs and healthcare do need to be made more affordable. Not sure there is an easy answer, despite what some posters seem to think.