Without patents, drug research and development would have to be nationalized. The costs are enormous and drug prices drop 90% in the US after patent expiration. I would rather have new drugs and high prices for a few years than no new drugs at all or nationalized drug r&d.
I think the HN community's approach is wrong: patent abolishment isn't optimal, heavy patent reform is. Patent terms should be regulated and adapted in each industry like the Fed Funds Rate, not like the 10 commandments. Software is definitely an example of where they should be abolished, though.
The reason drugs are so expensive to develop is the FDA testing. So instead of patents the FDA can just enforce a rule to not allow generic drugs unless they've gone through the same rigorous testing process the original guy did.
This is probably something the FDA should do anyway. Generic drug makers can look at a drug's signature, but there are so many other variables that can affect how a drug performs (quality control of the factory, quality of ingredients, recipe, procedure, etc.) that the FDA should require generic makers to go through the same testing process because they're different drugs.
The generic drug makers will have less overall expenses to bring a new drug to market (because someone already figured out a particular protein sequence that works in XYZ manner), but the original inventor will have time to milk the market as the first-to-market, encouraging innovation, and we can still get rid of our awful mess of a patent system.
Generally if you've built up a whole system (like the patent system), and it's really only beneficial for a select few (pharma), then maybe it'd be better to design a different system just for them (like the one proposed above) and don't make everyone else suffer the consequences.
The FDA can also go overboard. Recently (~1.5 years ago) they seized 'birthing pools' as 'untested medical devices.' These are basically inflatable pools for women that want to have water births. To give some context, the operating table in a hospital does not qualify as a medical device (and therefore no FDA testing), but apparently inflatable pools that women give birth in require FDA testing.
And drug research is largely nationalized. Drugs for "important" diseases are typically discovered by academic researchers and the R&D of a pharma company is either focused on a) how to scale up production of the drug b) how to market the drug c) drugs to cure lifestyle issues and psychological issues. Anything else is too risky or requires too long of an investment timeline.
I agree. The universe isn't so perfect a place that we can consistently count on all-or-nothing strategies. Sometimes we have to get a little messy to devise a working system. Drug research is a great example of an industry where patents really are necessary to promote the progress of science.
> Drug research is a great example of an industry where patents really are necessary to promote the progress of science.
It's too easy to say it this way. Any data to show us why the case of the pharma is so different from others ? The costs involved in the pharm industry depend heavily on:
- government regulation
- expected returns
It's not evolving in any kind of "free market" at all. It's a very poor example to use to justify patents.
Good point, enough reform in this area may make patents totally unnecessary. I shouldn't have called it a good example without knowing more about it. However, my intuition is that there could exist a situation or industry in which patents are justified. We should be careful not to dismiss them wholesale, and instead should only dismiss them in areas where we can find superior alternatives.
Drug research and development is largely nationalised, at least if we are talking about drugs for preventing or curing the most virulent diseases and not about stuff like viagra.
Viagra was a by-product/side-effect of a (ineffective) drug for angina and hypertension. I'm not sure how much UK government money was involved in that work, but I'm assuming a lot, as we're generally all for that kind of thing.
Also of relevance, the UK patent on using a chemical that gives you an erection as a cure for impotence was thrown out for being obvious. But the patents on how to mass manufacture it are still in effect.
