[superbatfish]

Gotta love the word “just” in that first paragraph.

The majority of the research money behind most (if not all) drugs, is spent well after academia’s contribution. Clinical trials are very costly, they usually fail, and yet they’re quite important!

[jmyeet]

> The majority of the research money behind most (if not all) drugs, is spent well after academia’s contribution

[citation needed]

Just look at the timeline for Covid 19 [1] and how late in the piece you get before a company like Moderna gets involved. What huge investment was made by Big Pharma here?

Even this was funded by Operation Warp Speed, another $10 billion in Federal money.

[1]: https://covid19.nih.gov/nih-strategic-response-covid-19/deca...

[twoodfin]

Well, for one, if Moderna et al didn’t actually provide much value above the public research, why didn’t the Chinese quickly create their own highly effective mRNA vaccines?

Building the platform to turn research into practical drugs is hard, not to mention expensive and hardly guaranteed to succeed.