The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
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The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
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Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#2[deleted]
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#3Well I've tried to set up a basic lab in an academic environment twice now. It took months every time and took ages to get tiny amounts of money, at big (European) universities. One out of the two times I did get money ... from a pharma company (and attention from several of their senior employees, which was even more useful than the money).
So please, can the public ... well ... pay for drugs once?
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#4Maybe the public should take a stake in the company for their financing? This is the rational way to do it for all other investors.
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#5Isn't this a deliberate model, and not only for pharma?
Govt funds the risky research, and then hands the baton to competitive industry, which is good at 'finding markets', making it a product, and optimizing costs.
Eg, google, amazon, etc, would not exist without the govt early (and continuing) funding of the tech their business is based on.
What is then supposed to happen is that profits are taxed sufficiently, feeding back in to the system, but that part appears to have broken down lately.
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#6> put a spotlight on the big pharmaceutical companies that had brought them to market — especially Pfizer and Moderna
Moderna? The research startup that had only recently IPO'd and didn't have a single commercial product before covid? Seems weird to call it a "big pharmaceutical company".
I'd rather a few founders become billionaires from a successful startup than have Moderna gone bankrupt and lose the vaccines they were developing forever.
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#7Isn't this a deliberate model, and not only for pharma? Govt funds the risky research, and then hands the baton to competitive industry, which is good at 'finding markets', making it a product, and optimizing costs. Eg, google, amazon, etc, would not exist without the govt early (and continuing) funding of the tech their business is based on. What is then supposed to happen is that profits are taxed sufficiently, fee…
yes, it’s deliberate. it’s a deliberate way of using taxpayer dollars to enrich private citizens without providing taxpayer benefits.
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#8> put a spotlight on the big pharmaceutical companies that had brought them to market — especially Pfizer and Moderna Moderna? The research startup that had only recently IPO'd and didn't have a single commercial product before covid? Seems weird to call it a "big pharmaceutical company". I'd rather a few founders become billionaires from a successful startup than have Moderna gone bankrupt and lose the vaccines they…
This assumes that only pharma companies can execute the steps required to bring the fruits of all that research to market. There is no reason a govt entity can’t do the same. It is a question of setting up the right incentives for the employees of that govt entity.
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#9Isn't this a deliberate model, and not only for pharma? Govt funds the risky research, and then hands the baton to competitive industry, which is good at 'finding markets', making it a product, and optimizing costs. Eg, google, amazon, etc, would not exist without the govt early (and continuing) funding of the tech their business is based on. What is then supposed to happen is that profits are taxed sufficiently, fee…
> What is then supposed to happen is that profits are taxed sufficiently, feeding back in to the system, but that part appears to have broken down lately.
right. with the right accounting processes, i could buy the rest. but when spending and tax collection are as decoupled or loosely balanced as they appear to be today, public investment into private industry is super risky.
Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice
#10Isn't this a deliberate model, and not only for pharma? Govt funds the risky research, and then hands the baton to competitive industry, which is good at 'finding markets', making it a product, and optimizing costs. Eg, google, amazon, etc, would not exist without the govt early (and continuing) funding of the tech their business is based on. What is then supposed to happen is that profits are taxed sufficiently, fee…
Only read the beginning of this screed, but its a unique and unlikely to be repeated situation until the next pandemic model. "Competitive industry" normally spends the big bucks to do Phase II and especially expensive Phase III trials. And as you note, manufacturing it. Which Pfizer did without Operation Warp Speed money until it started failing to deliver on its promises in December 2020. May have gotten some money from Germany through BioNTech which was the company that actually developed it.
The claim "By one estimate, the National Institutes of Health spent $17 billion on vaccine technologies fundamental to the Covid-19 vaccine." goes back to the mid-20th Century, is so broad as to be useless and is obviously disqualifying propaganda: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-covid-vaccine-built-b...