Re: [OT] gov't sponsored drug development

Kent Paul Dolan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Dr Chaos" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
>> Explain exactly how that "force" will work.  
> 
> Well, I learned it in a spiffy little tome by Paul Samuelson named
> _Economics_; I'd summarize it for you but it was several hundred
> pages long and I last read it in 1963 or so.

>> for optimum human health?  I doubt it. 
> 
> Considering that under the current system, almost all consumers are
> excluded from the very best medical technology purely by cost, I'd
> love to see you develop that line of thinking.

Sure thing.  With the combination of

1) unlimited trans-national drug importation
2) forced price controls in some countries
3) compulsory licensing of patents if a drug company refuses to 
   sell in that country 

the net consequence is that the global market price is identical
to the lowest price in any nation with trade relations.  This
may happen to be marginal price of production of a compound
by a generic producer. 

The result would be

A) all current on-patent medications would be available for 
   very cheap suddenly
B) research-oriented pharmaceutical companies would shut down
   their research division and stop any trials in progress
C) the biotechnology industry would shut down as no venture
   capitalist invests another cent. 

present drugs would be very cheap for the next 10-15 years (the length
of patents past approval usually), and there would be hardly any more
substantially new ones after that. 

Maybe 20 years from now people would say that's a bad idea,
and try to do something.  At that point they would have to train
a new generation of pharmaceutical chemists, drug developers and
biotechnology people as the previous ones had moved on to sweeping
the floor at Wal-Mart.   So since that's hard and costs money
and there's nobody to make money off of it, they don't and 
just bitch. 

>> Canada does try to stop it when supplies of drugs purchased for
>> their own citizens get re-sold to the USA. 
> 
> Umm, and of course _never_ read their spam, so they are clueless
> where to start?  I'm fairly sure the stuff being re-sold in the US
> was never first purchased by any Canadian government, and never by
> anyone with intent of selling it to Canadians, and I'm betting US
> consumers get it at a hefty markup from standard retail Canadian
> prices anyway.  Perhaps you could clarify?

I had heard reports of shortages of some drugs because Canadian
pharmacies had supplied it out of band for more money than
to the contracted doctors and hospitals it was supposed to go to. 

The present system is that Europe, Canada and to a lesser degree Japan
use government power to disequilibrate the system so that
U.S. consumers and taxpayers pay substantially more and their citizens
pay less.  Since the U.S. does not want to apply price controls,
Europe et al do not have to pay the normal costs of their action,
i.e. lesser research and development productivity which could be
harmful to human health.