[modeless]

The patent system literally grants monopolies, on purpose. I don't know why people are surprised when patented things are priced like there's a monopoly exploiting their customers, because that's exactly what's happening and everyone knows it. But somehow people never seem to come to the conclusion that granting monopolies is not the ideal way to incentivize things.

[vasco]

Maybe it is if the alternative is those things you granted monopoly on wouldn't exist. With drugs especially it's a difficult proposition to spend time researching if the day after you make your pill and sell the first one the next guy can just sell it too. So we need a larger change than just modifying the patent system for medicines, we'd also need to change the way we fund pharma research and after having thought about it a lot I don't have a solution. I agree with the problem you mention, but the solution isn't simple.

[amrocha]

There’s no reason pharma research should be for profit. The researchers aren’t doing it for profit, they would do it either way, the only thing private pharma brings to the table is price gouging.

[vasco]

Citation needed on "the researchers aren't doing it for profit". All drug companies have a bunch of them, more than wall street types running around. Most of them enrich themselves with biotech stock bets, insider trading, regulatory capture of national agencies etc. Why do you think somehow people that go into pharma research are different from people in any other industry?

Look, random example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10370755/ - explain why if they are not motivated by profit, how is it possible that the outcome of this paper happens?

If you speak to anyone in the field, their goal to get to a point where you having a patent or two giving you a passive income stream. You can't do it if you just public domain your work.

[amrocha]

Maybe my understanding is wrong, you’re telling me researchers keep the rights to patents they develop under the employment of pharmaceutical companies, and profit off of licensing? If that’s the case I was wrong.

But as for your other point, yes, researchers are different from people in other industries because of the high barrier of entry into the field through years of schooling, and the uncertainty of the work. Anyone that’s motivated primarily by money wouldn’t go into pharma research, they’d go into CS or finance straight off university.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t want money. If you can do a job you love and get rich off it that’s the dream. And there’s no reason the public sector can’t pay enough to motivate researchers.

[vasco]

> But as for your other point, yes, researchers are different from people in other industries because of the high barrier of entry into the field through years of schooling, and the uncertainty of the work. Anyone that’s motivated primarily by money wouldn’t go into pharma research, they’d go into CS or finance straight off university.

Careful with generalizations like this, you're not far from "all CS people are neckbeards" with this "all researchers are good people". My rule of thumb is "every large enough group of people is very similar to any other". This comes from the Central Limit Theorem.

Regarding you thinking researchers don't get paid from patents, here you go:

> “Recently, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com forced NIH to disclose over 22,100 royalty payments totaling nearly $134 million paid to the agency and nearly 1,700 NIH scientists,” Adam Andrzejewski, the group’s founder and CEO, wrote in a May 9 report. “These payments occurred during the most recently available period (September 2009 – September 2014).”

The article is mostly about a specific claim they made about Fauci but you can see even just at the NIH there's a lot of money being made personally by researchers or ex-researchers like this. Which is not inherently bad, but we should keep it in mind.

https://www.factcheck.org/2022/05/scicheck-some-posts-about-...

[amrocha]

Stop putting words in my mouth. Engage with my argument, not with the straw man you constructed in your head.

Ok, I’m happy about your theorem, but there’s a reason only tall people play in the NBA.

And like, are you even reading what you’re posting, or are you just googling for articles that support your position? We’re talking about private pharmaceutical companies and you’re linking an article about a public research institution.

[tirant]

I don’t know of any researcher not working for profit, none. Not only that, I would always want them to earn as much as possible, if they deserve it.

[amrocha]

Researchers aren’t the ones profiting off of price gouging.

Of course they’re working for money, they live in society.

[modeless]

See, blaming private companies for the consequences of government-granted monopolies is exactly the kind of thing I don't understand. The government is handing out permission to price gouge. On purpose!

[amrocha]

How did governments create pharmaceutical monopolies? And, if they did, why does that make the companies killing people by charging exorbitant amounts for drugs free of guilt?

[modeless]

Governments create pharmaceutical monopolies by granting parents that make competition illegal. They do this explicitly so that companies can raise prices, to incentivize and fund drug development (which other government regulations make more expensive). Companies are using the system as designed and intended by the government.

Nobody would develop drugs under today's ridiculously expensive process without some kind of very large incentive, so those life saving drugs wouldn't exist without those high prices. But obviously the system is terrible. Costs could be lower to reduce the need for the price gouging incentive, and there are other incentive structures that could be used instead of granting monopolies that wouldn't have as many terrible side effects. (Price gouging is far from the only issue with patents.)

[amrocha]

I see what you mean, but it’s not that simple. Sure, the government of a country issues a patent, but that patent is enforced by the WTO, not by the individual country.

Sure, an individual country can decide to break that patent, but if they do that they’re punished by the WTO. And large pharmaceutical companies have a large influence on the WTO through lobbying, and the revolving door from public and private executive positions in rich countries in Europe and the US.

So it’s not like these companies aren’t culpable either.

One more thing, you say that no one would develop drugs without some kind of very large incentive.

The incentive to governments is making sure their citizens don’t die. Even ignoring the ethical side of it, you can’t tax a dead person, so it’s in the governments best interest to develop drugs, and charge as little as possible for them for its own citizens.