[tomc1985]

I'm not in that industry, I'm sure my ideas aren't very good.

* massive step up in grant funding to front-load R&D costs so they're paid by the time the drug is out, or

* worldwide medical R&D fund, bounties for individual re-searchable issues, or

* move private R&D to universities, have profits gained pay back R&D, send any extras to researchers, and shutter R&D aspect of private medicine

At least I'm trying to think of alternatives, and not just trying to shoot other commenters down

[greeneggs]

I don't have a problem with your ideas. I think the vast majority of drug development costs are being borne by industry right now. So when you say "massive step up in grant funding," that might have to be something like a 100x funding increase. And the NIH budget has been flat (when adjusted for inflation) since 2002 [1], so there doesn't seem to be much political will for your suggestions. (And that's bad! Even if you could get your suggestions passed, long-term stagnant government funding for R&D would stall drug development.)

I think your ideas should be implemented first in another country, such as India or somewhere in Europe, so that we can see how well they work before throwing away the baby in the bathwater. Personally, I would prefer more gradual changes here in the US. For example, the cost of running drug trials has been increasing. Big pharma companies like this; going through the drug trial obstacle course is their specialty, and the huge barrier means that small drug companies that do the pre-trial drug research have to go through the big companies to get to market. Reducing these costs would lead to more competition.

[1] http://www.aaas.org/page/historical-trends-federal-rd#Agency

[tomc1985]

Indeed, lack of political will kills many things :/