[sunflowerfly]

I disagree on drug development. It is important enough we could simply pay for the research. We pay for a lot of it with taxpayer money already while the gains are privatized. The other areas are not critical to our lives and, while there is room for improvement, current IP practices are ok.

[ethbr1]

> could simply pay for the research

And the Phase X safety and efficacy trials, which comprise the bulk of pharma development costs?

[thfuran]

What about it? There's no reason it couldn't be publicly funded.

[ethbr1]

It could be... but do you really want a massive amount of public funds thrown at low-probability of success endeavors, guided by government efficiency?

Say what you want about the downsides to the current pharma development model, but those companies are highly incentivized to be as efficient with their pipeline spend as they can. And they're pretty damn good at it.

In contrast, if you use government-selected allocation, you'd turn pharma development into military procurement.

The more reasonable approach would be to enter cost-sharing agreements, where the government paid for a share of critical stages, in return for getting certain rights if the drugs were successful.

[thfuran]

"Government efficiency" isn't the slur you seem to think. Many parts of the government are administered quite efficiently. And many large companies are not.

[ethbr1]

You're reading a lot that I didn't write into what I did write.

Do you think a government-administrated drug development program would be more efficient than private industry?