[roenxi]

The shareholders are doing as much as the rest of us to help those dozens of people. It isn't fair to cast the blame on them.

The real culprit here is the system of laws and controls that forbid anyone else from stepping in to fill the hole they've left. The regulations and regulators deserve to be held up as the problem here. If it wasn't illegal to compete then maybe someone would. Maybe even one of the people who need the drug.

[aqme28]

So then why doesn't the company release the patent to the public?

[roenxi]

Because it isn't in their interests. They aren't running a charity.

A good plan should never have "and then people act against their own interests" as a step.

[ratsforhorses]

Isn't there an argument where humans arnt' here just to be fleeced? I mean who came first ? the chicken or the egg, are we just creating the monster that'll devour us? In a twisted way the profit motive basically is anti ecological, after all people talk about shareholders but they're just some pension fund who won't be around when we're under water.... I realise capitalism helps us find the most efficient solutions, but at one point we're the ones being milked (to death) and some big cheese(Welch GE) finds a way to create wealth by creating debt and then 20 years later they split it up to create more bubble wealth it becomes ridiculous and you're throwing the baby (us) away with the bathwater...

[s1artibartfast]

Any patent is expired by now. Still nobody wants to make it.