[okpatil]

You don't understand gravity of situation. India has third highest population of AIDS patients. Around 2.1 million people are infected[1]. That is twice the population of Cyprus. Around 170k children and adults lost their lives in 2009 [2]. India has 32.7 % of its population below poverty line [3]. That's an income below $1.25 per day. If they can't pay for the drugs doesn't make them less deserving.

And as far as drug developments go, due to GPU computing and molecular dynamics and monte carlo simulation methods, the cost of developing drugs has gone significantly down [4][5]. For starters they take a molecular structure, add or replace a functional group, and run the simulation with a particular protein structure. Drug development costs are not that high now, compared to twenty years ago. Most of the money goes in marketing.

If Government of India thinks more about it's 2.1 million than bunch of corporate companies trying to siphon money from wherever they can, then YES, they are in the right direction.

1. http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c621 2. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=in&v=37 3. http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/IND 4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16758486 5. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/71

[throwawaykf05]

> And as far as drug developments go, due to GPU computing and molecular dynamics and monte carlo simulation methods, the cost of developing drugs has gone significantly down [4][5].

I don't see where they show that the cost of clinical trials etc. for getting drugs through the FDA is affected. From what I can tell, those are the largest costs involved. Especially considering that most of the drugs discovered, even using those advanced methods, fail in the trial phase after hundreds of millions invested.

> If Government of India thinks more about it's 2.1 million than bunch of corporate companies trying to siphon money from wherever they can, then YES, they are in the right direction.

"Siphon money" or "capture the rewards of the value they provide"? Undermining global incentives to invest billions in research that could save hundreds of millions around the world does not seem like the "right direction". Not the first time the Indian government has done something selfish but shortsighted. (Pokhran comes to mind.)

[okpatil]

> I don't see where they show that the cost of clinical trials etc. for getting drugs through the FDA is affected. From what I can tell, those are the largest costs involved. Especially considering that most of the drugs discovered, even using those advanced methods, fail in the trial phase after hundreds of millions invested.

Agreed, but I compared the costs of developing drugs 20 years ago. They had to synthesize and experiment with each and every drug. Not that's not the case. And most of the drugs which being developed now, use the principals I explained above. If clinical tests are proven successful then they file patents, but it's not an "innovative" process as per say. India has been working to get rid of such patent trolls for some time now.

> "Siphon money" or "capture the rewards of the value they provide"? Undermining global incentives to invest billions in research that could save hundreds of millions around the world does not seem like the "right direction". Not the first time the Indian government has done something selfish but shortsighted. (Pokhran comes to mind.)

Agreed, these kinds of researches has to be done, but not at cost of people's lives, I have explained statistics of people affected by AIDS above. It is a grave social injustice. These research and development processes are flawed in the sense that they cannot provide affordable alternatives to existing methods. These companies must adapt to affordable and agile development processes or someone else will replace them, remember "Mars Orbiter Mission" by ISRO.

And speaking of Pokhran, it was not a short sighted decision. India has Pakistan, an irresponsible nuclear capable neighbor, with whom India has been in state of war since 1947. Effects of Pokhran economic sanctions were not severe, because foreign trade of India constituted to 4% of it's GDP, while USA participation was only 10%. After Pokhran, under then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India achieved record breaking 6-7 % growth rate in GDP. A few problems could be pointed out, but it was not a short sighted decision at all.

I am not being a socialist, but I must add that such innovation and development should be done for the people, not American people, not British people, but keeping people of the world in mind. Please don't monopolize products which can save a lot of peoples lives.

[throwawaykf05]

Getting way off-topic, but...

> And speaking of Pokhran, it was not a short sighted decision.

Pokhran very certainly was a short-sighted decision. It benefited absolutely nobody except the government by buying it some temporary popularity while actively retarding the country's economics for years afterwards.

> India has Pakistan, an irresponsible nuclear capable neighbor, with whom India has been in state of war since 1947.

Pointing to Pakistan is not an excuse: the whole world knew India had nuclear weapons capability. It had nothing to gain by proving the world what it already knew. Consider Israel: it's geopolitical situation is even worse, being a tiny country surrounded on all sides by many, much larger nations that would see it destroyed. Israel also is known to have nuclear weapons capability. Did they have to go perform a demonstration so the world?

And despite Pokhran, Pakistan has not wavered. Pokhran did nothing to slow Pakistan's regular shelling across the borders. Pokhran did not prevent 26/11. Pokhran did not reduce the number of subsequent terrorist attacks and infiltration attempts. It has done nothing at all to improve the Pakistan situation, and very likely made it worse.

> Effects of Pokhran economic sanctions were not severe, because foreign trade of India constituted to 4% of it's GDP, while USA participation was only 10%. After Pokhran, under then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India achieved record breaking 6-7 % growth rate in GDP.

I don't think anyone knows the true extent of the economic effects, but they are much worse than you suspect. It was not just the US that imposed sanctions. Many countries and companies imposed official and unofficial sanctions that directly impacted business relations and international collaborations. It was not only foreign trade. Companies that were going to set up local manufacturing plants and partner with Indian companies pulled out. That was a direct loss to the local economy. I personally know of business deals with private companies in Germany and Japan that abruptly fell through because of this. Nobody has measured the real impact. The 6 - 7% GDP growth may well have been much higher, but we will never know.

Funny you should mention ISRO because they were also directly impacted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6552947 It's a credit to ISRO that they delivered despite the governments actions. ISRO could have dedicated resources towards newer and more interesting projects rather than re-inventing technology that became unavailable purely due to political posturing. The opportunity cost is unmeasurable.

The only thing Pokhran bought was national pride that was short-lived and had ultimately no practical value, economic or otherwise. I have seen nothing positive come out of it, only a large amount of negative impact. I cannot see how it was anything but a terrible decision.

[refurb]

Drug development costs are not that high now, compared to twenty years ago. Most of the money goes in marketing.

That is entirely false.

1. Why would you include marketing in the cost of developing a drug? They don't market it until it's launched.

2. The cost of drug development is not lower than it was 20 years ago, even by a long shot. FDA approval requirements have gotten more and more complex each year. 20 years ago you could run a trial on a few thousands patients and call it a day. Now the FDA would require a 10,000 person trial over two years for approval. That costs money.