Suspend Vaccine Patents?

[togor]

India and South Africa think the US should suspend patents used to make Covid-19 vaccines, as a humanitarian act. Lots of public health types agree.

But are either of those countries going to make mRNA vaccine plants from scratch in time to deal with the pandemic?

I say no, keep the intellectual property locked up, but agree to sell the shots or donate at a low cost.

Those guys just want the tech--why not it's good tech--and are using their outbreak as an excuse.

A bit like a town with a poor fire service calling for mutual aid for a big fire, and asking for the equipment itself, not help putting out the fire.

[dryheat]

The company I worked at made a special version of something. The new management wanted to send it to a low grade NATO country. The old guys asked why? They will just reverse engineer it, screw it up, sell it and we will get the blame.

[togor]

Think antibiotics....the ones we have are becoming less effective, in no small part because in India they give antibiotics out like Tic Tacs, increasing the chance that people get sloppy and use them in a halfway way that makes them ineffective.

I could see the vaccine going the same way to be honest. It's just that when you got so many people, the rules get bent and broken, a lot.

[Vern Humphrey]

One of the reasons drugs are so expensive in the US is because foreign countries virtually TAKE our patents, thus not contributing their fair share to our R&D costs.

As I said much earlier on this subject, let foreign countries contribute to our R&D.

[lyman]

Think antibiotics....the ones we have are becoming less effective, in no small part because in India they give antibiotics out like Tic Tacs, increasing the chance that people get sloppy and use them in a halfway way that makes them ineffective.

I could see the vaccine going the same way to be honest. It's just that when you got so many people, the rules get bent and broken, a lot.

not how I was told the antibiotics and effectiveness work,,,,


and India has a large Pharma industry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry_in_India

[togor]

not how I was told the antibiotics and effectiveness work,,,,


and India has a large Pharma industry


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharma...ustry_in_India

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/197616

The NDM gene blunts the effectiveness of many antibiotics, and bugs share it between them.

One guess what the "ND" part stands for.

Yes India has a huge pharma industry, but it's the bread-and-butter type, and yes one of the surest signs that an antibiotic is headed towards ineffectiveness is when the Indians start cranking it out by the trainload.

[Mark in Ottawa]

Note that the cost to bring a new drug to market is now over $950M. In addition, I understand that of every 10 possible drugs that a pharmaceutical company starts to work seriously on, seven fail and have to be dropped; two make a little money and one makes a lot of money. The one that makes a lot of money has to defray the cost of the seven that had to be dropped. In addition, a drug that has a small market is expensive since there are few sales over which to defray the cost. That is not to say that the drug companies are benign in their marketing approach. To a large extent the price of a drug is a reflection of what they think the market will tolerate and to some degree, what the local market can afford. Another factor about the drug manufacturers is that they tend to produce the product in locations where their costs are low due to taxation policies and the cost of labour. Note that the value to weight ratio of pharmaceuticals is enormous. That is to say, the value of drugs is such that that they can be shipped anywhere in the world at a cost that is just a fraction of the value of the drugs themselves.

The end result of all this is that drug prices are not the same everywhere for a lot of reasons. As you probably know, drug prices in Canada are, in many cases, far lower than in the USA. In part this is because some years ago the Government leaned very heavily on the drug companies and pretty much threatened to allow generic copies of their drugs to be made if they didn't reduce their prices. Prior to that, Canada had he highest drug prices anywhere, with the pharmaceutical companies arguing that Canada was big and distribution was expensive. As mentioned, that is BS. End result was that the companies agreed that Canadian prices would be no more than the average price in 10 (?) other countries and the Government set up an agency to monitor them (Disclosure: I helped set up that agency)

[togor]

The US could exert pressure on drug companies if they wanted to. Taxpayers buy a lot of meds. So when the government policy is to NOT negotiate on price, it's proof positive that pharma's lobbyists have delivered. Heck the government negotiates harder when buying service vans even though it spends way more on drugs, and it's not like auto industry R&D is somehow hampered as a result. Long story short, if the US didn't allow itself to be the sole cost-recovery market for pharma, then it wouldn't be, and life would go on.

[Vern Humphrey]

As you probably know, drug prices in Canada are, in many cases, far lower than in the USA. In part this is because some years ago the Government leaned very heavily on the drug companies and pretty much threatened to allow generic copies of their drugs to be made if they didn't reduce their prices.

And the result was to shift development costs to consumers in other countries -- principally the United States.

[togor]

And the result was to shift development costs to consumers in other countries -- principally the United States.

We could play the same game if we wanted to.

[dryheat]

Note that the cost to bring a new drug to market is now over $950M. In addition, I understand that of every 10 possible drugs that a pharmaceutical company starts to work seriously on, seven fail and have to be dropped; two make a little money and one makes a lot of money. The one that makes a lot of money has to defray the cost of the seven that had to be dropped. In addition, a drug that has a small market is expensive since there are few sales over which to defray the cost. That is not to say that the drug companies are benign in their marketing approach. To a large extent the price of a drug is a reflection of what they think the market will tolerate and to some degree, what the local market can afford. Another factor about the drug manufacturers is that they tend to produce the product in locations where their costs are low due to taxation policies and the cost of labour. Note that the value to weight ratio of pharmaceuticals is enormous. That is to say, the value of drugs is such that that they can be shipped anywhere in the world at a cost that is just a fraction of the value of the drugs themselves.

The end result of all this is that drug prices are not the same everywhere for a lot of reasons. As you probably know, drug prices in Canada are, in many cases, far lower than in the USA. In part this is because some years ago the Government leaned very heavily on the drug companies and pretty much threatened to allow generic copies of their drugs to be made if they didn't reduce their prices. Prior to that, Canada had he highest drug prices anywhere, with the pharmaceutical companies arguing that Canada was big and distribution was expensive. As mentioned, that is BS. End result was that the companies agreed that Canadian prices would be no more than the average price in 10 (?) other countries and the Government set up an agency to monitor them (Disclosure: I helped set up that agency)

Seems like an educated post. But, threatening drug cos. with generic puts generic in a bad light doesn't it? In other words, we'll allow junk to be distributed. I've always thought generic was the good stuff without the fancy label. Which I think is actually the case. It's not junk. But they don't have the ad money. It might taste a little funky, but it's OK. So, Big Pharma gets to ask more because of the label and maybe that's fair. Now if generic was cranked out in a fourth ave. garage that would be pounced on pretty fast. I might be off on some of the details.
Biblical; the parable about the poor cold guy on the side of the road. The Good Samaritan gave him his coat. India is large and populated. It's not one cold guy. Send some. But occasionally there will be die offs whether plant or animal. Where does all that wood come from? Who cleans that up? Seeing funeral pyres is even worse than seeing shots given.
ND stands for None Disclosure?

[Mark in Ottawa]

And the result was to shift development costs to consumers in other countries -- principally the United States.

To a degree perhaps but I would suggest that the effect was to control predatory pricing in Canada at least but unfortunatly not in the USA. Togor's comment on the failure of the US Government to negotiate lower prices is, I understand, a key factor in the high prices in the USA

The drug companies still make a significant profit on their Canadian sales. In fact, while our prices are lower than in the USA, they are still higher than in a lot of other countries.

We should not feel sorry for the drug companies. A lot of them do charge very high prices because they are in a monopoly situation and because the market will bear it. One sad situation is that the price of insulin in the US is so high that before COVID, we were getting busloads of drug tourists who would cross the border and legally buy three month's supply in Canada and take it home. The price differential was so great that even with the cost of the bus, it was cheaper to do that than to buy the insulin at home. I have no personal experience here but I understand that in Canada you can buy insulin over-the-counter from the pharmacist without a prescription. An oddity about this situation is that Insulin was developed at the University of Toronto by a family physician who convinced the school to give him lab space and an assistant for the summer. When it was perfected, he sold the patent to the university for $1 in order to ensure that it was available to everyone at the lowest possible price. Current insulin is not the same as the original product but one can only marvel at his generosity. (I should mention that he was knighted for his effort and won the Nobel Prize in 1923)

[Vern Humphrey]

To a degree perhaps but I would suggest that the effect was to control predatory pricing in Canada at least but unfortunatly not in the USA.

The INTENT was to control prices in Canada, but the EFFECT was to throw the R&D costs on the American consumer -- and the ultimate effect will be to slow the rate of drug development.

[togor]

The INTENT was to control prices in Canada, but the EFFECT was to throw the R&D costs on the American consumer -- and the ultimate effect will be to slow the rate of drug development.

Again, if the Americans choose to be a deliberately lucrative market for Pharma, than that's on them. But better if it's a conscious choice, right? Like the Covid vax. We chose to throw money at the problem early so it's only right that we're at the head of the line for jabs. But on other meds there's no objective reason why we have to get hosed.

[lyman]

there is a lot of grift in both Big Pharma and Insurance in the USA,