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India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

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Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#41

Post by politician »

blackspider wrote: post #36
jellicle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you really think this is smart? Of course it is. This has easily brought India trillions of dollars worth of benefits. Is there any benefit to India at all of paying billions of dollars per year to the United States for.... nothing?

Of course India shouldn't! Why should they? Why would anyone want to pay for something that cost billions of dollars to be discovered now that it is discovered. We should all steal!

Just like the US violated European patents during our Industrial Revolution, India, China, and other emerging markets violate our patents and copyrights to fuel their own economic growth. Really, the best we can hope for is that they'll start producing their own worthwhile research which we can license in 10-20 years.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#42

Post by politician »

ftwinnovations wrote: post #30
cdooh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concede to your superior argument. There is a better way to look at this topic but I still don't like the crippling debt cancer treatment leaves with families. Though stealing is a strong word, I'd use copying.

It is in fact stealing, just as "copying" a song is stealing (I know the HN audience won't like that!). "Copying" software is stealing it. Using a euphamism to alleviate your guilt regarding a crime is just self delusion. And I realize this is a difficult subject, and I myself lost a brother to cancer, but the fact is that stealing actually hurts cancer victims in the long run. You might help a few cancer victims rig…

US law distinguishes theft from copyright infringement, not the audience.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#43

Post by kamaal »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #40
kamaal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I'm an Indian citizen and have the right (luckily) to dissent. Oh! I am an Indian too. Cost reduction is innovation too. Its like what Telecommunications companies have done to call rates here. Remember the days when getting a telephone connection required recommendation letters from ministers? These days you can get one for 100 rupees with a address proof in 20 minutes. Pharmaceutical patents at most act like soft…

Oh most definitely! I totally agree with making healthcare accesible to all income groups and at the same time cheaper for everyone. Don't like to copy-paste but in one of my other comments I wrote: ... Debate about models such as free public healthcare, compulsory insurance, compulsory insurance where the government pays the difference that the less wealthy can't make up for, etc... ( http://news.ycombinator.com/ite…

Actually back in the days of PSU's like HAL, ITI, BHEL .. etc. These schemes where there.

You could even go to private clinics. I mean you could go to a good private clinic, get yourself good healthcare and it would be paid for with your + company's contributions.

There were even hospitals that ran minimal payment schemes like MS Ramiah Hospital in Bangalore. Where the hospital trust would finance the difference of treatment after your bills. Sai Baba hospital is doing an awesome job, I know many poor people who got their cataract operation done for almost what they could pay. But as you know our country's population is too high for these patch work attempts to work.

The Government of India needs to seriously reflect on

a. Health care reforms.

b. Insurance, and ways of making it work.

c. Cut corruption in government hospitals and other areas.

d. Taxes on essential commodities like medicine and equipment.

By all means tax the alcohol,cigarettes and other luxury stuff, but taxing medicine and things that save people lives. Isn't quite justifiable.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#44

Post by politician »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #33
ams6110 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are averse to the idea using human beings as guinea pigs, even if they are poor.

Poor people are also averse to dying of AIDS and cancer.

That is exactly the reason why we shouldn't allow desperate people to be used as canon fodder for research in nations which are better known for corruption and reverse engineering.

Or are you saying that the poor should feel lucky for the opportunity to sign up for experimentation?

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#45

Post by bdhe »

ftwinnovations wrote: post #30
cdooh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concede to your superior argument. There is a better way to look at this topic but I still don't like the crippling debt cancer treatment leaves with families. Though stealing is a strong word, I'd use copying.

It is in fact stealing, just as "copying" a song is stealing (I know the HN audience won't like that!). "Copying" software is stealing it. Using a euphamism to alleviate your guilt regarding a crime is just self delusion. And I realize this is a difficult subject, and I myself lost a brother to cancer, but the fact is that stealing actually hurts cancer victims in the long run. You might help a few cancer victims rig…

It is in fact stealing, just as "copying" a song is stealing (I know the HN audience won't like that!). "Copying" software is stealing it.

This is incorrect. And you're making the same mistake as the one you point out in your next sentence. Using an euphemism to simplify a complex ethical question (possibly incorrectly).

According to this [1] theft involves a component of denying another person with rightful possession of that property its use. When dealing with ideas (and software, algorithms, math etc., etc.) we're dealing with new ethical questions that we shouldn't hurry up and sweep under the carpet by pigeonholing into our previously inadequate understanding of ethics. Doubly so when it deals with life and death as in the case of drug patents.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft#Elements

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#46

Post by mistercow »

smallblacksun wrote: post #28
mistercow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, you think the value of having a monopoly on the only known process for making a drug and being first to market with that drug is $0?

Not 0, but vastly less than the cost of discovering and getting approval for a new drug. The vast majority of medical compounds are not particularly difficult to synthesize, meaning that the value of the process patent is relatively small. Once you release the drug, you will only have a very brief period before a competitor is able to come to market. In particular, they will not need to undergo clinical trials, which…

>Not 0, but vastly less than the cost of discovering and getting approval for a new drug.

I'm going to need to see some hard data on both sides before I'll simply accept that claim.

There are also alternative solutions we could use besides granting the first company a total monopoly. For example, generics could be taxed early on in order to subsidize the approval process for new drugs.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#47

Post by craigyk »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #13

Indian pharmaceuticals are a joke. They have zero inventions to their name. Their "secret" to selling drugs cheap lays in the following line from the article. "In 1972, India made only the process for making drugs patentable, not the drugs themselves." Do you really think this is smart? Heavy R&D costs are involved in coming up with compounds that save lives. If you only have the manufacturing process that's patentab…

Yes, it is smart. On many levels, even the long run.

I think you might not be aware that a very large percentage of drugs in the West emerge from publicly funded research... sometimes even 'basic science' research. While pharma does do its own R&D, it mostly just farms promising leads from academic research.

Where they do shell out big bucks is in the cost of performing clinical trials. This is a regulatory cost. While I think trials are a critical step, I'd be surprised if costs here couldn't come down substantially through means that don't involve R&D. Maybe India could offer something in this regard?

India's pharma companies might be a lot more 'innovative' if their academic science and government spending on science were stronger. This might just be a matter of time.

Finding a different way of manufacturing a drug can be very innovative work. Trust me, the chemists that come up with these organic syntheses all too often consider themselves geniuses.

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#48

Post by pm90 »

politician wrote: post #41
blackspider wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course India shouldn't! Why should they? Why would anyone want to pay for something that cost billions of dollars to be discovered now that it is discovered. We should all steal!

Just like the US violated European patents during our Industrial Revolution, India, China, and other emerging markets violate our patents and copyrights to fuel their own economic growth. Really, the best we can hope for is that they'll start producing their own worthwhile research which we can license in 10-20 years.

Ah, I like this comment. Very few people realize that progress in other countries actually means that the pie just gets bigger, although that's hard to see in the short run

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#49

Post by pm90 »

yashchandra wrote: post #24
ashishgandhi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the right answer to solving the cost problem is stealing (super) costly inventions. Cheaper and more widely accessible healthcare would probably be the more apt choice if you ask me. Debate about models such as free public healthcare, compulsory insurance, compulsory insurance where the government pays the difference that the less wealthy can't make up for, etc. would be more apt I feel. Also discussi…

We all can take a lesson or two from Dr. Jonas Salk.

A model of selfless research may be appealing to a few individuals, but to get the large amount of research, testing etc. involved in modern medicine, you need an army of professionals. And no money==no army

Re: India firm shakes up cancer drug market with price cuts

#50

Post by pm90 »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #13

Indian pharmaceuticals are a joke. They have zero inventions to their name. Their "secret" to selling drugs cheap lays in the following line from the article. "In 1972, India made only the process for making drugs patentable, not the drugs themselves." Do you really think this is smart? Heavy R&D costs are involved in coming up with compounds that save lives. If you only have the manufacturing process that's patentab…

I get the feeling that there is simply no way to get exorbitantly priced drugs to the masses without bankrupting any kind of fund that provides for this (govt/national agency etc). The mistake in your argument is that you assume pharmas are losing out from the market in poorer countries like India. While this may be true to a certain extent, the sales of such drugs would be significantly low if they were bought at the original price. Also, the Indian govt./private sector doesn't provide any kind of healthcare benefits, AFAIK most healthcare is self-sponsored, which is different from US where big insurance companies handle much of the costs. There is a grey area here. It isn't simply that you try to protect your IP at all costs or try to be over-zealously righteous. As another commenter mentioned, this kind of idea stealing happens all the time, and although it may not be strictly legal, it has done much more good to us than sticking to laws would have.
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