Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

undark.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 47 posts

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#21

Post by s1artibartfast »

Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #10
jacknews wrote: post #5

Isn'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…

Never mind the fact that 17 billion is on par with the annual R&D spend at one Pharma company.

I think a more interesting comparison would be all national funding for drug R&D versus all corporate R&D funding. This could be done on an annual basis or historic.

NIH budget was 43 billion in 2021 for all healthcare sectors

Top 10 US Drug company[1] R&D budgets [2] were:

1: Johnson & Johnson $15 Billion

2: Pfizer $14 Billion

3: Merck $13 Billion

4: AbbVie $7 Billion

5: Bristol $11 Billion

6: Abbott $3 Billion

7: Amgen $5 Billion

8: Gilead $5 Billion

9: Eli Lilly $7 Billion

10: Biogen 2.5 Billion

Total 91+ Billion

Keep in mind that those are only US headquartered drug companies, and some of the biggest players like Roche and Novartis are in Europe[3]

https://www.pharmapproach.com/top-10-pharmaceutical-companie...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JNJ/johnson-johnso...

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-reports/top-10-pharma-...

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#22

Post by cuteboy19 »

sanp wrote: post #8
nshepperd wrote: post #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…

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.

Hopefully they don't keep spending 4 million on a single toilet everytime

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#23

Post by rayiner »

sneak wrote: post #17
rayiner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economists broadly agree that taxing corporate profits is inefficient. From an NPR show surveying five economists across the political spectrum about what are consensus ideas in the field: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-... (“Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich peop…

> The problem is that we don’t sufficiently tax the billions in payroll at those companies. The government isn’t short on money. Are we sure that the problem isn’t that we are spending Elon Musk’s entire lifetime net worth on the military each and every 90 days while not even at war? We shovel twenty tons of hundred dollar bills (about $2bn) into the neverending pit of the war machine every day. I’m not convinced mor…

> The government isn’t short on money.

It surely is. The federal government ran a $880 billion deficit in 2018.

> Are we sure that the problem isn’t that we are spending Elon Musk’s entire lifetime net worth on the military each and every 90 days while not even at war?

Yes, definitely. Total government spending at all levels (federal + state + local) is about $7 trillion. The military budget is only 1/10 of that. If we cut our defense spending to the NATO 2% of GDP target, we would save only about $300 billion. We need to cut twice that just to close the structural deficit, and raise taxes by about another trillion to pay for universal healthcare.

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#24

Post by candiodari »

rayiner wrote: post #23
sneak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that we don’t sufficiently tax the billions in payroll at those companies. The government isn’t short on money. Are we sure that the problem isn’t that we are spending Elon Musk’s entire lifetime net worth on the military each and every 90 days while not even at war? We shovel twenty tons of hundred dollar bills (about $2bn) into the neverending pit of the war machine every day. I’m not convinced mor…

> The government isn’t short on money. It surely is. The federal government ran a $880 billion deficit in 2018. > Are we sure that the problem isn’t that we are spending Elon Musk’s entire lifetime net worth on the military each and every 90 days while not even at war? Yes, definitely. Total government spending at all levels (federal + state + local) is about $7 trillion. The military budget is only 1/10 of that. If…

> It surely is. The federal government ran a $880 billion deficit in 2018.

You do realise the government is supposed to run a deficit, right? That's quite literally where money comes from.

You can make the case that it's too big ... and it is, but it should run a deficit.

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#25

Post by swooni »

rayiner wrote: post #14
sanp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes it’s a matter of the incentives, but a government entity has fundamentally different incentives than a private entity. Countries ranging from Canada to Sweden to India to China invested heavily into state-owned industries in the 20th century, and every single one reversed course. Because it just didn’t work.

Sweden's state-owned enterprises were sold purely because of politics. No one reversed course. It's just the right wing got majority and sold what they could when they had the chance including a large amount of public housing, schools and healthcare facilities.

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#26

Post by rayiner »

candiodari wrote: post #24
rayiner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government isn’t short on money. It surely is. The federal government ran a $880 billion deficit in 2018. > Are we sure that the problem isn’t that we are spending Elon Musk’s entire lifetime net worth on the military each and every 90 days while not even at war? Yes, definitely. Total government spending at all levels (federal + state + local) is about $7 trillion. The military budget is only 1/10 of that. If…

> It surely is. The federal government ran a $880 billion deficit in 2018. You do realise the government is supposed to run a deficit, right? That's quite literally where money comes from. You can make the case that it's too big ... and it is, but it should run a deficit.

That’s not how it works at all.

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#27

Post by rayiner »

swooni wrote: post #25
rayiner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it’s a matter of the incentives, but a government entity has fundamentally different incentives than a private entity. Countries ranging from Canada to Sweden to India to China invested heavily into state-owned industries in the 20th century, and every single one reversed course. Because it just didn’t work.

Sweden's state-owned enterprises were sold purely because of politics. No one reversed course. It's just the right wing got majority and sold what they could when they had the chance including a large amount of public housing, schools and healthcare facilities.

No, it wasn’t some accident of Swedish politics. The same thing happened all over the world at the same time. It happened in India, it happened in China. It happened in Germany. The movement toward state owned enterprises in the 1960s and 1970s was reversed in myriad countries with myriad political systems because it didn’t work.

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#28

Post by elktown »

rayiner wrote: post #14
sanp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes it’s a matter of the incentives, but a government entity has fundamentally different incentives than a private entity. Countries ranging from Canada to Sweden to India to China invested heavily into state-owned industries in the 20th century, and every single one reversed course. Because it just didn’t work.

> every single one reversed course. Because it just didn’t work.

Didn't work for whom?

To suggest that political changes happen due to "it didn't work" seems like a pretty shallow conclusion. There are a lot that can be said about the last decades of free-market privatization & reforms in Europe, and in Sweden in particular, but that it was done out of necessity rather than a general political shift after the collapse of the Soviet Union is simply a biased take.

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#29

Post by rayiner »

elktown wrote: post #28
rayiner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it’s a matter of the incentives, but a government entity has fundamentally different incentives than a private entity. Countries ranging from Canada to Sweden to India to China invested heavily into state-owned industries in the 20th century, and every single one reversed course. Because it just didn’t work.

> every single one reversed course. Because it just didn’t work. Didn't work for whom? To suggest that political changes happen due to "it didn't work" seems like a pretty shallow conclusion. There are a lot that can be said about the last decades of free-market privatization & reforms in Europe, and in Sweden in particular, but that it was done out of necessity rather than a general political shift after the collaps…

> Didn't work for whom?

Everyone from voting public in liberal democracies (Sweden, Canada, Germany), to the voting public in less liberal democracies (India), the Islamic world (Egypt), to communist regimes (China, Vietnam).

Re: The Public Shouldn’t Pay for Drugs Twice

#30

Post by elktown »

rayiner wrote: post #29
elktown wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every single one reversed course. Because it just didn’t work. Didn't work for whom? To suggest that political changes happen due to "it didn't work" seems like a pretty shallow conclusion. There are a lot that can be said about the last decades of free-market privatization & reforms in Europe, and in Sweden in particular, but that it was done out of necessity rather than a general political shift after the collaps…

> Didn't work for whom? Everyone from voting public in liberal democracies (Sweden, Canada, Germany), to the voting public in less liberal democracies (India), the Islamic world (Egypt), to communist regimes (China, Vietnam).

What do you mean didn't work for the voting public in Sweden?
Post reply on HN