[gozur88]

India can break patents on drugs it considers too expensive. The real danger is if this sort of thing makes drugs unprofitable pharma companies won't spend any money researching drugs to treat uncommon conditions, and the drug will never exist to start with.

We'll get endless varieties of new opioids, blood pressure pills, pecker perkers, and not much else.

[danjoc]

I always hear this argument, but never any evidence to back it up. Is it simply regurgitating econ 101? There must be some economic incentive? Any time people die from a disease, that alone creates an incentive for those left living to find a cure.

What econ doesn't teach is that people are not perfectly rational creatures. Just like we will find people who will write code for free, who will make music for free, there will always be people who are searching for cures for the sake of searching for cures.

I don't buy the argument that only Big Pharma who can deliver cures. As the article pointed out, Gilead didn't develop the cure. They bought the company that did.

[gozur88]

>There must be some economic incentive? Any time people die from a disease, that alone creates an incentive for those left living to find a cure.

No matter how altruistic you are, as a private company you can't put billions of dollars toward a drug that's going to lose money.

>I don't buy the argument that only Big Pharma who can deliver cures. As the article pointed out, Gilead didn't develop the cure. They bought the company that did.

... which they would not have done without the expectation of a profit.

[refurb]

I don't think anyone is arguing only Big Pharma creates new cures. In fact, most big pharma companies acquire smaller companies for their drugs.

That said, I don't disagree that money is the only motivator. However, good intentions aren't enough to develop a new drug. It takes a hell of a lot of money as well.

If you don't create incentives for private investment, then you need to get that money somewhere else.

[sabujp]

lol, where do you think drug companies do research? That's right in India.