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Brazil Breaks Patent to Make AIDS Drug
Andy Tai writes: "In this CNN story, Brazil decides to break a patent over an AIDS drug for public benefits. Brazil will produce the drug domestically without agreements with patent holder, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. Brazil's efforts to fight AIDS have been praised internationally, and it successfully prevented the US Government from bringing complaints in the WTO on behalf of the drugs industry. This may set an important example that public needs justify the disregard of patent protection." There's another article in the Boston Globe about the decision.
There's a time and a place for all this profit-minded patent shite.
AIDS ain't it!
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
How could it be in this day and age that lives are more important than money and intellectual property? I must have not woken up yet, and must still be in a dream world.
"This may set an important example that public needs justify the disregard of patent protection"
It sets a few more examples, too. If you're an AIDS patient, it sets the example that you should fly to Brazil, right away. If you're a drug company, the example is to look into carpet bombing Brazil, and if that fails, stop developing drugs no one will ever pay you for.
Just because software patents are patents on math & therefore stupid doesn't mean all patents are stupid. Pharaceutical R&D is intensely expensive. Screwing the companies that fund research is a bad solution to what is at heart a political problem.
I hope that events such as this one will help some companies realize that there's more to business than just having a good IP portfolio.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
I sincerely doubt all the AIDS cases in Brazil were caused by blood transfusion, or passed from mother to child. A high percentage of those infected became that way by choices they made in regard to sexual activity and sharing of needles. In this age of education, AIDS is generally acquired do to ignoring precautions. Ignorance is no answer.
Blar.
I think it's good to see that there are some governments out there not looking out for corporate interests when it comes to a person's well being. While the Swiss company will probably sue out the wazoo against the government of Brazil for patent infringement, I beleive Brazil in this case has set an excellent precedent regarding patents on medicine that hold the potential to keep someone who is terminally ill from dying.
Brazil has also set many other precedents, including one that US (and the rest of the world) has to yet catch on with - clean emission alcohol powered cars. Unfortunately, because of who we have at 1600 Pennsylvania, I don't expect many of these to be around until after he leaves office.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
There are a few reasons this is a bad trend. Now they are using a public health problem as an excuse to void a valid international patent because they did not get the agreement they wanted. This plays very well in the press, "bad evil company would rather see people die than sell their stuff cheaper" instead of saying "country refuses to pay a fair price for drugs to save its own people"
Want a story that is similar, but on a more "person" level. White farmers losing their property in Zimbabwe, because its not fair that they have it.
This is the new trend, government are going to take what they want and justify it in any shape or form. While they start off doing this with the cover of "saving lives" how long before it becomes anything they want?
So here are some of the real problems.
1. Basically Brazil breaks the agreed internation law and makes the stuff for free, thereby forcing other nations to either follow their example of pay the difference. (see South Africa's example - do it or we take your companies assests)
2. Reduces the possibility of region specific drugs NOT being developed because companies rightfully fear losing all investment. (some diseases are more prevalent in certain areas of the world - that is an obvious statement).
3. Raises spectre of loss of intellectual property on other levels, and more and more are confiscated for the "public good"
4. Increases the likelyhood of similar industries leaving "hostile" countries furthering the problem that country faces.
When do we stop? Who can judge what is a fair price for something? Who can judge what can fairly be patented?
Apparently people are willing to allow those with the guns to do it, and not realize its the first step to losing their own rights.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I like the idea of saving people, and it would be hard to sanction or punish Brazil for doing this -- since the rest of the world would boo us off the planet. But this is wrong, people. Hell, in the long run, education will save a lot more people than this drug. This drug will not make Brazillians stop fucking each other or sharing needles or whatever it is that Brazillians do to get AIDS.
But instead of educating and changing killer lifestyle habits, their government steals IP. This world is going to shit. But that's just MHO.
And to be off topic for a second, those moderators who disagree with me may feel free to moderate me down as a troll for having an opinion (since that's what happened the last time I posted) -- but that won't make me less right. ;)
-Omar
*as in Libertarian free, not social-welfare-state free. >;)
While I hate to side with the large drug companies on such a sensitive issue:
It is a fact of life that if the drug companies do not get paid for their R&D, then they will not bother to produce new drugs for combating AIDS and similar diseases.
As proof of this, consider how many new Malaria drugs are produced? Basically, there is no profit in R&D for malaria, so drug companies simply don't bother.
So, in the short-term this may seem like a good idea, but in the long term it could do serious damage to the search for an AIDS cure.
Well, that's probably going to be it as far as new drugs in the fight against AIDS. Drugs cost millions (billions?) to develop and test and distribute. If other companies are going to allow these patents to be violated, there's virtually no incentive for drug companies to develop any new drugs to fight AIDS. So yeah, Brazil and other countries who adopt this tactic may get some short term gains, but long term, it's going to kill AIDS patients. Literally.
Personally, I'm hoping that some day it'll get modded down for missing the obvious fact that if people circumvent the intellectual property rights of drug companies, the result is less money for research, less new drugs, and ultimately less lives saved.
After reading a few posts stating that there's the danger of such actions disencouraging research, I would like to add:
- The law says that the gov't can issue a compulsory license, which doesn't mean public domain or copying the process for free, but gives the power to the state to set the terms of the license. This is consistent with a constitutional principle that public (not gov't!) weel-being is more important than the weel-being of a few individuals.
- The law also sets a period after which this compulsory licensing can be done. I'm not sure whether it's 2 or 3 years, but should aloow for a reasonable pay-bak period.
- According to the Boston Globe article, a ptient in Brazil costs US$ 350.00, while the same tratment costs US$ 10,000.00 in the US. Clearly, there's plenty of margin for cutting.
Other few points people maybe should be aware of:
- Health Minister José Serra most definitely has an eye in next year presidential elections.
- It is illegal for individuals and private companies in Brazil to trade AIDS medicine, except for selling to the gov't. My brother died of AIDS in 97 and my mother ended up with a big supplt of DDI, which she returned to the health service. She would have done that anyway, but imagine the kind of abuse that would take place if you could obtain medication for free and trade it.
if people circumvent the intellectual property rights of drug companies, the result is less money for research, less new drugs, and ultimately less lives saved.
If we respect the intellectual property rights of Big Pharma, the result will be huge dividends for their shareholders and the deaths of many innocent people who just could not afford to stay alive...
Naturally the rights of the shareholders to expect a good return on investment must trump the rights of the impoverished...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
we need more gonvernments who put the people first and not the corporations.IMHO this reflects well on your people and culture, and the ethics you hold.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
This is they way things actually work. The world we live in is mostly created through artificial laws and regulations that have no real basis in reality. Intellectual property? Yeah, whatever. If the drug is so simple to recreate that the government of brazil can do so without assistance from the drug's owners, so be it. When did Brazil's citizens agree to go along with IP Laws?
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
Information and data cannot be owned -- they
lack scarcity, and to grant a monopoly on a single
idea is to steal from the potential of every
single person on the planet. The mere fact of
investment does not entail a responsibility for
returns. Or do you see competition as theft?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Well, yeah, maybe if they're the US, an EU country or Japan. For everyone else, they're busy trying to figure out how to reschedule their IMF debt so they can perhaps one day have an economy.
Do governments want to pay for medicine to be developed? Yes. In fact they do. As noted before, check our (the US) budget for AIDS research.
I think the best analogy for this is something like the Polio epidemics that swept this country in the early 20th century. I don't know that history all that well, but I doubt our government was charging people for vaccinations. And had it been a pharmaceutical company supplying the vaccinations, you can bet that putting their commercial concerns before the lives of children would have had an army of parents throwing bricks through their windows.
I'm all in favor of free enterprise, and pharmaceutical companies have as much a right to compete in the marketplace as anyone, but there's a time and a place for commerce.
The points regarding that this action will discourage R&D are probably true, to the extent that this move may cause companies to reduce their R&D budgets. But what good is R&D and new drugs and technologies if only x% of the world can take advantage of developments supposedly in the name of 'humanity'?
.. no leverage, no money management skills (when you don't have money, you don't learn how to manage it); and less education increases the likelihood that you will repeat the act that caused you to require the product in the first place somewhere down the road.
There are countries out there that could have many, many, many more people and companies working on the same solutions, thus spreading the R&D costs across more organizations and making information and research sharing more cost effective. Unfortunately, those countries are having a tough time, in various capacities, keeping their population alive, let alone wealthy enough to invest in new companies, research facilities, etc. Of course, neo-liberalism preaches the 'more for me, less for you' mantra, so the existing companies don't really warm to the idea of more 'competition'. If they could have their way, everyone in said countries would buy their drugs, but not get well enough to spur technological development in that country. Poor people are always a companies favorite customer
For an industry that was caught redhanded not so long ago in an industry-wide price fixing scam (yes, Roche participated), I think they have alot of nerve complaining about losing patent fees in areas where their cure could stop an epidemic of life-threatening deseises, in addition to helping set the stage for opportunities, development, research and growth in the countries that need it.
"Old man yells at systemd"
you judge people's worth based on their sexual preference.
you believe that only gay people get AIDS.
You need to try subtlety. Claim that the stockholders of the drug company are being cheated or that we should stop trading with any country that violates a U.S. patent. You are dealing with a sharper bunch on here than you realize and no one here is going to believe that you are that stupid, bigoted, and narrow-minded. Try again.
The Big Pharma can either put up or shut up. They had two options: negotiate reasonable drug prices with Brazil and still make profit or lose every chance for profit. Any self-respecting government will opt for patent infringement if it is a way to save the lives of their citizens.
It will be a sad day indeed if and when the corporations become so big and so powerful that sovereign governments won't dare to tread on them if necessary.
What happened to the drug companies' rights?
Nothing. Companies are not people, they exist only because governments say so, and their "rights" are supposed to defined, as whatever benefits people.
If they don't receive royalties on their drugs, how are they going to support ongoing research??
They can cut spending on advertisement of their yet another 24-hours nasal decongestant by few percents. And, maybe later at least one of those Brazilian people, whose lives will be saved because of this, will do a piece of biological research that will be crucial for those pharmaceutical companies.
What is Brazil doing to cure AIDS??
Keeps its people alive.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Quite apart from the fact that these drugs aren't designed to be used in the conditions found in Brazil (which will mean that strains of HIV resistant to this treatment will be produced there),...
What do you mean by "conditions"? Maybe you mean the legal system... Oh, sure, these drugs weren't designed to work in such a framework.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The next big thing(tm) might not have the same amount of effort or ressources ported to it if there's a precedent of patent smashing...
SOME are public funded, but not all... and I doubt that the majority of the top minds in this world are working in a public funded environment, I am not saying there's none, but surely not a majority.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
OK, so the subject line is a little inflammitory, and thus, by actually stating an opinion, I too am moderator-bait. We share that much at least. ;)
But as for your opinion itself... can you actually be serious?
You've got a country full of dying people. There's a drug available that can save a goodly number of them. It's expensive, and you're poor. You have the ability to reverse-engineer the drug (or just steal the formula outright, whatever) and produce it yourself for minimal cost.
Would you, as the leader of this country, REALLY allow people to DIE a slow, lingering, and very painful death just because a piece of paper says you have too?
I'm sorry, not me. As a hypothetical Brazillian leader, my duty is to serve the people of my country, not some foreign drug company. If they won't play ball on price, then we do what we gotta do to save them.
The point on education is a salient one, but this is not a zero-sum game - producing the drug does not mean a reduction in education, nor does increasing education do a dammned thing for those already infected.
This case is one of the best examples for the "IP is bogus, information wants to be free" position that I've seen. We're not talking about music files or games here, this is information that will actually SAVE REAL HUMAN LIVES, that a corporation wants hidden and protected SO IT CAN MAKE MONEY.
If that doesn't make you sick to your stomach, I don't know what will.
This is my real issue with the Libertarians of the world. There is no place in their world-view for the public project, done for the benefit of mankind. Everything must have a profit motive, and protecting profits has priority over all else.
Just like Marxist-Leninism goes too far, by wanting _everything_ state-owned and state-run, Libertarian goes too far by giving all control to the private sector. Either extreme is insane. The Real World requires compromise, and I for one am glad to see Brazil stick up for REAL freedom, and do what is right.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
in the long run, education will save a lot more people than this drug.
But instead of educating and changing killer lifestyle habits, their government steals IP. This world is going to shit.
So screw the people who are already infected. They are going to die anyways (they cannot afford the treatment), and will not be able to afford the cure when one becomes available. By all means let us work to protect the rights of the shareholders. Who cares about some poor people who live in some third-world nation anyways.
Geez, some people think that simply because they are human, they have some inherent rights and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
I suspect that if you were living in those slums in Brazil, you might have a slightly different opinion...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Personally, I'm hoping that some day it'll get modded down for missing the obvious fact that if people circumvent the intellectual property rights of drug companies, the result is less money for research, less new drugs, and ultimately less lives saved.
l _industry.htm
WRONG!
BigPharm spends more money on Marketing than they do Research AND that research enjoys heavy government subsidy (grants) AND tax breaks.
Americans are so blinded by FreeMarket Capitalist Dogma to see that they are dying for profit. Literally.
Please read:
http://www.mercola.com/2000/june/24/pharmaceutica
http://www.viracept.com/3_DOSING/AGVR.pdf
Its pretty complex, but tell me why Brazil or anyone else should have to pay at least something for developing this, let alone testing it?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'll bite.
i'm sorry, but brazil is clearly in the wrong here.
Not clear at all
What happened to the drug companies' rights?
Rights created and conferred by elected governments. The elected Brazilian government justifiably thinks that the tradeoff between corporate and people's rights is different in their country.
If they don't receive royalties on their drugs, how are they going to support ongoing research??
Drug companies do not have a right to the public's money to subsidise extraordinarily inefficient research programs. Most drug company income lines the pockets of executives and shareholders anyway.
What is Brazil doing to cure AIDS??
Probably alot more than most drug companies. The large drug companies have a consistent record of ignoring the third world because there's no monopoly profits to be made.
It looks like they just want to get something for nothing to me.
I'd say it's the companies who want something for nothing.
It's unreasonable that an intellectual property creator should not be paid for their work. It is equally unreasonable, and for the same reasons, that an intellectual property creator should be paid an indefinitely large number of times for the one intellectual property.
how many people do you think would donate money to pharmaceutical companies for research?
By extension, how many people would donate money to micro$oft for software research?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
How Brazil handles itself *after* its decision to go ahead and manufacture the drug will define whether Brazil is a country that stands for the rule of law or for the rule of lawlessness.
Brazil is exercising one of the undisputed powers of a sovereign -- to take what it needs. A lawful sovereign pays reasonable compensation for what it takes. Thus, in civilized countries, when land is taken to build a road, the landowner does not get to veto the road, does not get to extort an unreasonably high price for being the last piece of land needed to build the road, etc. He gets reasonable, just compensation, and such a right is guaranteed by the courts of the country.
In common law countries the "rule of necessity" is not limited to sovereigns. For example, you are permitted to tresspass in certain conditions because of necessity. A classic example is a ship docking to avoid a killer storm. That does not mean not having to pay afterwards for what you take, or what you damage, however. "Necessity" defines conditions where you can "take it and pay a reasonable amount."
Brazil had a contract with Roche to provide drug that it is going to honor. Brazil is gearing up to provide its own generic version of the drug after the contract expires because it has been unable to reach agreement with Roche as to a price at which Roche will continue providing it. Brazil is taking. If it decides to take for free, it stands as an example of lawlessness. In such a case, it should be punished heavily by international trade organizations.
If it taking because of the impending necessity, with the intent to pay an agreed amount afterward, then it really is a tempest in a teapot. "Reasonable" in this case is certainly *not* what the generic would cost on the generic market. Reasonably prices are not negotiated under the threat of imminent death -- that's why courts often settle the "take and pay" price assigned to necessity situations.
However, knowing Brazil from inside (as a Brazilian), I'd say money will only be shifted from the hands of the lawful IP holder to the hands of a few "selected" companies/people inside the country.
You can't be serious about that. Procurement process is absolutely public. Yes, laboratories will make money out of this, but the money will go to the lowest bidder that qualifies technically. You don't want any home brewery making this medicine, right? And even if the law didn't dictate things to be that way, interest groups fighting for the good of HIV-positive people in Brazil are *very* powerful, and the press loves them, and we're having elections next year. No, you can't be serious.
WTF? The REASON Brasil had to produce their own drugs was because of the PRICE GOUGING these poor, nearly going out of business because of the big bad Brazillian thiefs, drug companies. They couldn't get a 40 margin out of Brazil, so they decided to let them rot and die. I'll never feel sorry for these heartless bastards.
You can't patent ANYTHING without publishing it, and you won't get any data from universities without cooperation. Drugs are not Coca-Cola.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I do wish people would stop it with the "how are they going to fund research?" crap. If you look at the big picture of drug research, and where the costs really are, you would see that a lot of it is inflated numbers caused by "economic factors" and other such nonsense. That is how a lot of universities are able to continue to do excellent pharma research. The companies are hindered for less noble reasons than academia.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
YOU ARE. That's right, as the cost of Drugs in the US goes up, so does your insurance & deductables.. You are personally paying the world's social welfare. I hope you enjoy it...
Money is of no importance. Only life is important.
If have to pay $10 more a month in insurance, so be it. If I have to pay $10 more a month in taxes, well , Americans all got a tax refund that many more than half of us voted against.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
For the sake of liberty we must prevent and undo
intellectual property protections. It is simply
unacceptable that something that I may discover,
a thought I may have, data that I might collect
might be blocked or require a fee for my use.
I assert that any piece of data, any idea, any
thought that I might acquire or synthesize is
something that I may use as I see fit, with no
restrictions on that action as such, including
sharing it with others or using it for various
purposes.
I will not comprimise on this.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing. Brazil hasn't broken any law here, not our own (I'm Brazilian in case you haven't noticed), not anyone else's. We applied the Compulsory License law, which says the Govt has the power to "force" a licensing to a third entity in cases of abuses that damage the public interest.
In this case, the licensee is the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (state-run medical research center). They, and they alone, have now the right to manufacture the concoction in addition to Roche.
That's right, the patent is still valid and in full effect. I'm not the licensee, so if I go and make and sell the medicine I can be sued by Roche, and the Brazilian govt won't do a thing to stop them.
To say that Brazil trampled Intellectual Property, therefore, is megacorp-inspired FUD.
I can't help but notice that the article tends to focus on the pharmaceutical companies developing and promoting "me too" drugs that don't really do much that's new, but rely on advertising and promotion to carry them along. As I understand it, the "me too" drugs are more profitable but less helpful overall.
However, in the case of this drug, it seems to be one that's important enough and unique enough that Brazil has chosen to embark on the rather serious task of disregarding the world patent and beginning local generic manufacture. Further, one could argue that the Brazil situation will only further serve to scare pharmaceutal companies away from innovative, life-saving drugs, causing them to go with research in drugs that are less likely to be "pirated" for the short-term public good.
Brazil is a sovereign government. In other words they have the right to decide what the laws in their country are. If they decide to honor human life over intelectual property that is their choice. In the same way there are countries in which software patents do not exist. In those countries you could implement one-click shoping and there is nothing Amazon could do about it. Just because there is an international agreement dosen't mean you have to follow it. Look at the U.S. and Dubya's opinion of the Kyoto accord. The international community agreed to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, but the U.S. is a sovereign power, and doesn't have to abide by it if they don't want to.
International politics are no different then playground politics. There are two kids playing on the playground Tom and Jack. Jack wants to play on the swing, Tom dosen't want him to. Tom can do a few things, he can try and reason with Jack, he can threaten Jack, or he can go get the teacher. The pharmasucitcal companies and their parent nations can try and convince Brazil this is a bad thing, they can threaten Brazil with sactions or military retaliation, or they can go running to the WTO. The teacher(WTO) can still only do so much though. If Jack decides that the fun from playing on the swing is worth going to the principal's office then there isn't much the WTO can do. Especially if Jack knows that his did won't punish him when he gets home. On the field of intenational politics, the same as on the playground one rule reigns over all others, might makes right. If the U.S. wanted to invade Brazil and stop them, they could. But the U.S. isn't going to, but this little IP dispute isn't worth a war to anyone.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
Unfortunately, this ends up being a lot more philosophical a statement than it initially seems. These patents, and the money they make, may not affect the bigwigs all too much at the pharmaceutical companies, but they do affect the lower workers who need the patent money to put bread on the table.
There are a variety of reasons why drugs are as expensive as they are, not the least of which is greed. But also insurance premiums, lawsuits, and salaried employees all play a part in raising prices, so making an all-inclusive statement that this move provides "life before dollars" really isn't exactly true. Money is a system that affects everyone, and some people's lives *will* be screwed by the breaking of the patent law.
the "me too" drugs are more profitable but less helpful overall.
Me-too Drugs are created when companies must side-step patents. If we have no patents than this becomes unnecessary... am I missing something in your point.. you seem to be agreeing with me.
go with research in drugs that are less likely to be "pirated"
Did you read the article? You realize that the industry serves itself, public health is not a concern.
the short-term public good
...you are 100% mis-understanding this situation, the 'SHORT-TERM' public good occurs when some BigPharm can lock up a drug for themselves, and use their publicly-subsidized research to extort profit. The LONG TERM good would be served to eliminate private drug-patents and the private health industry and make people healthy: all people, in all possible ways, all the time. The public only has to pay enough to make themselves and their neighbours healthy - not put some fat-boss in a new Porsche in Beverly Hills.
If Brazil has no money to buy the drugs, we get one of two situations:
1. Brazilians with AIDS have no money to buy drugs. Therefore, the drug companies get no money from them, and the AIDS patients die.
or
2. Brazilians with AIDS have no money to buy drugs. The Brazilian govt violates the patent, the patients get their drugs, but the drug companies get no money from them.
Looks like #1 is a lose-lose situation.
At least in scenerio #2, the people get their drugs.
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
http://www.roche.com/home/investor/inv-finance/
They are pulling in cash hand over fist. Now, why couldn't they negotiate a lower price w/ Brazil so that wouldn't send half their budget to Roche?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
How many /.ers have worked for a pharmaceutical company? How many have seen 7 years of research go down the tubes after promising studies find that the drug has a serious adverse effect on .5% of the people taking it and the last 7 years of your life were for naught.
Does anyone around here understand how business works anymore? Where do you think retirement funds get funded from? Corporations are not run by some maniacal CEO hellbent on a conspiracy for world domination. I'm not out for world dominatino. I know my manager isn't. I've met his boss and his bosses boss. At what level do people instantly turn evil?
Why do you think companies spend, on average, $1 billion to develop each new marketable drug? For fun? A drug spends as much as 10 years in the research phase before going to market. Anywhere along the way it may be found to be a) not as affective as hoped or b) not safe enough to market. Rinse, lather, repeat. Assuming it does make it to market, it may only have 5-7 years before generic competition forces the original research company to stop selling the drug for any kind of profit. The government, btw, does not contribute any measurable percentage of the research cost to the private company.
Don't like marketing? I hate it more than anyone else out there, I assure you. I see it every day and it makes me ill. But it helps make sales, and it subsidizes low income patients (free samples to doctors from sales reps mainly go to elderly and those without health insurance). And all those revenues go back to, guess what, research for more drugs.
Don't like the pharmaceutical companies and their high prices? Don't buy their drugs. I will help keep them in business. I'm paying for a service (research). A drug's price isn't the price of materials or shipping really. It's payment for the service they did by spending time and money researching and refining a single compound out of tens of thousands that may help me live longer or better. But to turn around and say thanks and not be willing to pay for it is asking thousands of people to work for free and without reward for all their hard work.
As much as I would like to think that helping my fellow man is enough of a reward, I know that it isn't. It doesn't pay my light bill or put food on the table or get me any of those nice shiny computers I play with. I work to make a living to pay for things that I need (and the extra goes to things I want). Extrapolate that up from the individual and you have corporations. That's just the way it is. They need money to pay the light bills, run their supercomputers, and pay the scientists. And you need to survive the drug pipeline (go talk to Bayer and Merck about how much those suck right now).
[Disclaimer: none of this is representative of my employer, my clients, or anyone but myself. Two cents.]
It's interesting, because that's just the problem most people have with George W. Bush's decision to go ahead with the US missile shield. Why risk having millions of Americans subjected to slow, lingering, painful death from nuclear radiation when we can just ignore the treaty we signed with Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty we signed with Russia all those years ago?
I'd just like to point out the history here.
Drug companies have been jerking around the third world for a LONG time now, and Brazil is not just an example: they will likely be the first pebble in a land-slide.
The tactic to date has been to provide these drugs at sky-high prices in those countries so that only the very rich can affort them. Then, a G8 nation sees that Hatians can't affort AIDS drugs, so there's a funraiser or foreign aid to pay for drugs for the locals.
This profiteering has been a major complaint of the entire third world to the UN and WTO for a long time (it's not just AIDS drugs). However, until now, no country felt that it was enough of an emergency to risk WTO/US/UN reprisals to stand up to these tactics. Brazil has offered to buy the drugs (not the people, the country), but at reasonable prices. The drug companies refused. Brazil has thus begun making their own.
This is not theft. This is not a case of someone trying to get a free ride. This is a case of human needs vs. corporate profits.
Noone is saying the companies are villains.
Its just that most brazilians cannot afford the product. So this is money they would not be making anyway.
So we can either force the brazilians to mortgage their asses to hell, we can force the companies to sell something below cost, or best of all we can leave them both to their own means.
The pharmecuitical companies are not being materially harmed, dont be fooled.
Come on, the fact that this had to happen is a result of the worst possible combination of MORAL decision making. The Brazilian government is making a bad decision, but it is still the best decision under the circumstances. International law and patents are important yes, but human lives are infinitely more important. Does anyone here get that?
And don't go thinking about any "long-term" crap about saving lives by maintaining corporate profits on research through patents. That's BS too. Governments have a very direct responsibility for the quality of their constituents lives. That's why we support (through taxation usually) research on environmentally friendly technologies, basic reasearch on health, etc. That is the long-term stuff.
By breaking the patent on AIDS drugs, Brazil is definately keeping their long-term interests in mind:
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Though I agree with WHAT they are doing, I'm not in agreement with HOW they are doing it.
Simply put, a government should not be in the business of breaking the law. That is inherantly DANGERIOUS. What is to stop them from breaking other laws to supress someone, "in the public good"?
What Brazil should do is pass and impliment a new law that limits the scope and duration of ALL patents, and provide for mandatory non-exclusive licensing of all patents. But it should apply to ALL patents, foreign and domestic, equally and without discrimination.
The patent holder SHOULD be compensated. But it should be reasonable. To not compensate them at all IS theft, this time on a grand government scale. That is reprehensible.
To do it the way they are doing it is to set a dangerous legal precedent for their own citizens, and to discourage any further development of drugs and technology for their benefit.
If a farmer grew food, only to have the government come and steal what it wants when it wants to (against the law), the farmer would be less likely to care about how much he grows, or worse, to give up the business (because he couldn't even feed his own family). This ultimately hurts both the government and the people. This is one reason why communist/collectivism has failed every time and everywhere it's been tried.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
If I spent a fortune researching and creating a drug, you bet I would be pissed if someone else started making my drug without my permission.
The excuse of R&D costs is a red haring as they are spending more to market the drugs then to produce them.
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
There are a few reasons this is a bad trend. Now they are using a public health problem as an excuse to void a valid international patent because they did not get the agreement they wanted. This plays very well in the press, "bad evil company would rather see people die than sell their stuff cheaper" instead of saying "country refuses to pay a fair price for drugs to save its own people"
... I imagine King George (from whome we inherited this asinine system of entitlements in the first place) was pissed when the US declared independence and you know what? That didn't make it any less right to do so.
Except that three assumptions here are inaccurate:
1) Monopolies do not yield anything remotely approaching "fair prices" without serious government intervention (e.g power companies and baby bells) and often not even then.
2) Monopolies aren't necessary for R&D expenses to be recouped, and a reasonable profit to be made.
3) You imply that the characterization of "bad evil company would rather see people die than sell their stuff cheaper" is unfair and inaccurate, when in fact the historical and contemporary evidence is rather strong to the contrary.
Software patents are bad. So are every other form of patent that grants government enforced monopolies and undermines the very free market upon which our economies depend. There are other ways to finance expensive R&D besides grantintg 20 year monopolies and allowing said monopolies to extort exhorbitant prices from dying people and leaving millions of less fortunates to die (or extorting payment from their impoverished governments).
To paraphrase another blindly pro-IP comment: This should make sick every one of you that has a Free (as in liberty) bone in their body. Ideas are not property, nor are inventions inherently something to be possessed, except as a result of arbitrary laws which have turned out to have the opposite effect as was intended, namely to slow progress rather than accelerate it, and now in the process are actively resulting in the suffering and death of millions. Frankly, I do not care if someone who thinks they have a god given right to a monopoly on an idea simply because they won the footrace to the patent office is pissed
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If we don't provide some sort of protection, there won't be any incentive for people to invest in the first place. Would Roche have devoted the money necessary to Market this drug if anyone who is capable of manufacturing it could do so? Hell no. This drug has saved lives (well, extended them, at least -- which is all any drug can really do). This drug would probably not exist if it weren't for patents. QED...
The actual development of new drugs is highly government funded. So these patents are a very insidiuos form of corporate welfare.
Pharmecuetical companies do invest money in marketing, patenting, middle managment, production, etc. This is mostly low risk.
The profit motive is excellent for physical production. But it breaks down with ideas, and has the opposite effect there.
I wouldn't be making any new AIDS drugs.
Scientists don't work for free. It may sound great to say "Fuck patents, lets take care of people" at first, until you think about it.
Drug companies will stop sending important drugs to places that flaunt their disregard of the law like Brazil. A few AIDS patients may live a little longer, but alot of new antibiotics & other drugs will never make it to Brazil.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Please see:0 00 7.marmorsul.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/
It speaks to health care costs && approaches. I am Canadian, and we too have a national health system, and I am extremely gratefull for it. The alternative is unthinkable.
From the Article:
place American and Canadian performance in a comparative context. She failed to tell her audience (or did not know) that Canada insured 100 percent of its citizens for $2,250 per person in l998 while the United States expended $4,270 per person insuring only 84 percent of our citizens.
Basically - dont let Blair or his Neo-Liberal twits sell you out to the Yankee Health Businesses - Canadians are watching the WTO, FTAA and the rest licking their lips at the thought of putting us all under their clutches... I wont let them, and YOU SHOULDNT LET THEM!
science is a religion
Somehow the idea of government enforced intellectual property doesn't strike me as quite the libertarian philosophy. Maybe you have decided to overlook that patents and copyrights were deemed a necessary evil only for limited periods and expressly against the wish of Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers.
IP is theft from the people. It was accepted by some of the founding fathers as an exception to the first amendment (free speech). It was not, and is not, universally accepted as proper.
The theory that anything Intellectual can be Property is a far cry from naturally scarce physical goods being Property.
If you want to bring up that old chestnut about pharmaceuticals needing to recover their R&D costs, why not also mention that the typical marketing costs of new drugs are higher than the R&D costs? Surely any truly marvelous new drug would not need such exorbitant marketing.
Why not also wonder at the exorbitant tests necessitated by that non-libertarian entity otherwise known as the FDA, somewhat in self defense against ridiculous lawsuits? Surely there's a lot of money to be saved here in exchange for the small loss that whiners would have to accept some of the risk that a potential life-saving drug might have side effects.
Why not also wonder at those pharmaceuticals who stretch out the patent lifetime with bogus lawsuits against the generic manufacturers?
Why not also wonder at those pharmaceuticals who dream up trivial new uses for those drugs so they can delay the entry of generic equivalents?
Infuriate left and right
"
As long as there is competition, developing a cure is a likely.
"
But releasing it isn't.
If you are a pharmaceutical company in possession of a treatment for $disease and you discover a cure for $disease it's in your interests not to release the cure until your patent on the treatment expires or another company discovers a cure.
Cures are not profitable compared to treatments, cures can only be sold once, treatments many times.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Since countries are signatories to IP laws and can sign out of them, your plaint begs the question of whose laws apply. The pharmaceutical companies develop drugs based on US and European laws for the US and European markets. They have no right to dictate the laws of other countries - if Brazil passes a law that gives Brazilians the right to reverse-engineer any drugs they need to, perhaps they will face trade sanctions when they try to export them, but they certainly have every right to pass that law.
Hurm...what really bothers me is that a bunch of people are saying "This is bad! Where is the modivation for pharma company to do R&D now?!"
I am way to young to know what polio was. My grandparents tell me it was a pretty scary thing but thanks to one guy and his research team polio is very preventable and contained. I was under the impression Jonas Salk did his research into polio vacines not because there was money to be had but because polio was a nasty crippling disease. I could be wrong though...
Is it too much to expect people to look in to the cure for AIDS because they think the world would be a better place without such a horrible thing around? Do people really have that much faith in big company's bottom lines to drive R&D to cure AIDS and other nasty disease?
And most researchers were trained in public school systems, and recieved public grants to do their work, etc.
My hope is that this leads to the revival of public research. The privitisation of medical researches makes it much, much more profitable to develop "treatments" than cures - it's a lot more profitable to sell someone morphine for life to treat the pain of a broken leg than to just reset the leg.
.. for your english grammer/spelling.
>Now they are using a public health problem as an excuse to void a valid international patent because they did not get the agreement they wanted.
If there is any reason why to break an patent wouldn't this be it? "I'm sorry you have to die/suffer, but there are international patent laws to uphold."
>White farmers losing their property in Zimbabwe, because its not fair that they have it.
Not the same thing. This example has one group both fighting for property and the ability to work. The Brazil situation has one group wanting to make money and another dying/suffering.
>Basically Brazil breaks the agreed internation law and makes the stuff for free, thereby forcing other nations to either follow their example of pay the difference.
Wrong. Roche will not make the pills. Brazil does. If I produce pills in my basement, besides lost potential sales, it costs Roche NOTHING. Unless their accounting department are counting on every HIV patient as revenue, this will never show up in their bottom line.
>Reduces the possibility of region specific drugs NOT being developed because companies rightfully fear losing all investment.
No... as long as it happens somewhere in the world there will be drugs produced. Because it will spread to richer nations and there is more profit off of rarer conditions. (Because if you get it, you HAVE to pay for it and the drug companies can charge anything they want). And most of these "regions" are already poor. They can't afford expensive drugs right now. Remember Brazil?
>Raises spectre of loss of intellectual property on other levels, and more and more are confiscated for the "public good"
Welcome to the real world. Wars have broken out for the "public good". Oppression of miniorites have been due to the "public good". The artifical patent rights of some company is pretty minor compaired to this.
>Increases the likelyhood of similar industries leaving "hostile" countries furthering the problem that country faces.
Thats the risk each individual country takes. Don't see what the problem is. Its a simple pro/con thing. Obviously Brazil thinks its worth it.
>Who can judge what is a fair price for something?
Like human suffering? Thats the question Brazil had answered.
>Apparently people are willing to allow those with the guns to do it, and not realize its the first step to losing their own rights.
What does this have to do with anything? Where does guns come into a patent dispute between a company and a country? Talk about a wild tangent.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Diseases like AIDS are, I agree, not the problem exclusively of the diseased; society (through government funding of basic R&D and legal protections for developmental R&D, but not necessarily the current system) must contribute to eliminating or controlling the disease.... but the statement
AIDS ... makes the bubonic plague look like a bad case of hiccups.
is patently idiotic. AIDS has no where near the impact of the bubonic plague, or malaria, or typhoid, or polio, or influenza, or tuberculosis, or any of a host of other diseases. Except for a few subsaharan countries where social structures guarantee high rates of infection (for EVERY STD by the way....), it has no where near the rates of infection, death, illness, incapacitation, and maiming of those other diseases. And unlike those earlier diseases, MOST (certainly not all, but most) of the people being infected by AIDS can avoid those infections by changing their behavior (which you acknowledge when you say: people are still so numbheaded that they go out and spread the disease anyway).
So, while AIDS is a tragedy, and we should be doing many things that we aren't doing to help fight the spread of the disease, to claim that the situation is on par with the most destructive epidemics of the past and present is pandering and clearly ridiculous.
Explain to me please, why she is a culprit, not a victim.
I'm looking forward to your reply.
...but you only addressed one of many points the parent poster made. What about the other points? Keep trying, and in the meantime, make an effort to remember that AIDS is a disease, and not just a social issue.
Virg
I've been reading the arguments back and forth about this issue. Some people think that lives are sacred and hence breaking the (IP) law is OK. Others say that the ends does not justify the means and other arguments.
Well *forget* the morality of the issue and look at it from a practical viewpoint. If countries are going to break international law to distribute medicine, then what reason will drug companies have to find cures or even treatments to these diseases? None. As it is, a cure is completely unprofitable to large drug companies because Brazil and other 3rd world countries who can't develop or afford it themselves would simply "pirate" it. But they will suffer come the next great epidemic. The drug companies will ignore the big diseases because they are not profitable, instead they will stick to the profit centers of headache/pain relief and fat reducing drugs. IOW drugs that don't save lives but only make you feel better *without actually helping anyone*.
Carpet bombing? Yeah, that's very smart.
...stop developing drugs no one will ever pay you for
Which this is of course not a case of. All rich countries, where they no doubt make at least 95% of their profit, will still pay full price for their drugs.
I see loads and loads of comments here in support of the medicine company that either bashes or seriously questions Brasil's decision in this matter. I also see how their comments are given high moderation points for their insightfullness and I also see flaws in their reasoning and logic.
I therefore thinks it's time for a reality check and discuss some FACTS before we start to take sides:
1.Quite some comments says or hints that Brasil is breaking "international laws". Wake up. There is no international body declaring international laws. What Brasil is breaking is international AGREEMENTS on how to treat patents. Brasil is in their full right to break this agreement if they discover that it costs more and gives less than they anticipated. That the medicine company is crying "foul" is just to be expected, but their handling of this situation really asked for it.
2. How much of the medical research is actually financed by medical corporations that rely on patents for their income? I have no real statistics, but I remember reading that here in Sweden around half of the funding of cancer research is financed by "Cancerfonden" that gathers donations (from government, companies and individuals) for cancer research. Add to that all funding done by institutions as universities and hospitals and you find that commercial medical research is in the minority. Remember, this is in Sweden where we have an unproportionally big medicine industry compared to our population.
3. Remember that patents isn't just a protection of your discovery, it also blocks your competition from inovating along the same branch! Patents both rewards and stiffles inovation from time to time. There is no proof whatsoever that the patent system has led to a higher rate of innovation in any field ever. We have just followed a logical string of thoughts and reasonings to come to the conclusion that patents do increase inovation. This reasoning is built on the assumption that we have a mostly correct perception of the world.
4. People here are commenting on how patents affect a business that they don't know anything about. Many falls into making the same kind of generalisation that we constantly have to defend ourselves against, that patents are good and drive inovation and that there would be much less inovation without it. We know that it isn't true for software development. How can you state it as a truth for another industry that also differs a lot from normal mechanical innovation without really knowing anything about that industry?
5. Doesn't the fact that we are forced to chose between peoples lives and getting money to future research that will save peoples lives tell you that something is wrong with the system? We need competition and rewards to get research in medicine, but we don't need the blocking (in both research and applying the results) that the patent system gives.
There are other ways to raise funding, encourage competition and give rewards than just applying the patent system. Isn't it time we take a look at some other possible sollutions now that we clearly can see that the patent system doesn't work as it should in the medical field?
If the system is broken, then fix it...
I think Roche will survive, flourish even, despite being unable to suck the blood of Brazilians.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Don't forget that in the U.S., drug research is tax-subsidized -- that's right, people, we pay coming *and* going for this stuff -- after we partially pay for the research, Lilly or Pfizer or whoever gets the patent and gets to charge us $100/bottle for 17 years.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Well, perhaps the wording should have been virtually no progress. One vaccine in several decades does after all put them somewhat behind the curve in medical research.
Bully on them for that vaccine, tho'.
Virg
I'll do one better. I'll name two:
Competition will keep the prices fair and reasonable. It may take longer to recover an expensive R&D development, but it is recoverable.
Oh, and ad homonem attacks aside (where does Star Trek or television come into any of this, other than your absurd stereotyping?) I may have given you credit for more intelligence than you deserved (the above two scenerios would count as fairly obvious to me, and a number of others have occurred to me with a little thought, but for which I do not have time to enumerate as I have to get back to work), but that hardly makes the point I made "absurd" by any definition.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
That certainly hasn't been my experience. Working in drug discovery for over 20 years (mostly for government) I would say that the majority of actual drug discovery efforts (as opposed to more basic research in biology of diseases) is done by the drug companies themselves. Also look where the market is for novel drug discovery techniques. There are many such techniques that have strong roots in acdemic labs, but the hard work of turning these interesting ideas into useful tools is funded either directly by the drug companies or indirectly because the drug companies are the only places that will pay big bucks for the finished product.
I hope not. We have enough deceased as it is. If you meant "diseases," though, I think you're overstating your case. There are plenty of people who would fund research for a cure for various "deceases." I don't, however, feel like funding, even as a consumer, most of the treatments. I'm diabetic. I was, until a few months ago, taking one of the latest diabetic drugs on the market at a pretty hefty premium. Actually, my insurance company was paying for it. Anyway, after a lot of experimentation and consultation with my doctor I decided I would try to control my sugar with diet. Well, two months later and I'm doing fine. I'm pretty lucky, but I also think it's revealing that I can do for myself with some self-control what the drug was doing for me. Yeah, the drug companies spend a lot of money, creating medicines that we may or may not need. Maybe the system isn't doing exactly what we need it to do.
Do you have any idea at all what the development costs are for this kind of medicines?
More importantly, do you? I hear a lot of numbers. They often smell like they've been freshly pulled from someone's ass. What does it actually cost to develop a treatment for AIDS?
Patents as a concept is very important for all economies all over the world
I'm becoming increasingly skeptical of this. I would be happy to hand over tax money to fund medical research in the public interest. Again, for a cure. I think we're being sold one treatment after another because it's a long term strategy for the survival of drug companies. That isn't working for the best interests of people like me (and believe me, Diabetes can be just as fatal as AIDS if left unchecked. It's just not as scary). There are a lot of assumptions in your argument that just don't pan out. Medical research got done long before there were medical patents. Presumably there are people who have a slightly wider focus than the checkbook in front of them.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Ahem, just because "some" people are willing to work for "nothing", does not mean it is a feasible OR a superior means of satisfying society's needs. The Open Source movement hardly answers even a MERE fraction of today's software, and the costs of R&D are almost laughable in comparison, not to mention the SLOW development times. Did you know that: The average drug costs 600million dollars to bring to market today (almost all of the costs are incurred in DEVELOPMENT, not research). While this figure does include the drugs that never make it to market, it does not take into account several other extremely powerful issues. For one, the average time to market (development & approvals time) is almost 15 years long today--that's an EXTREMELY tough position to be in financially. Secondly, of those drugs that make it to market, only a small fraction actually BREAK EVEN on total R&D costs (Hint: This does not even include marketing costs).
The drugs companies are VERY much dependent on a few "hit" drugs to offset the R&D costs for ALL other efforts (not just that one drug).
So to answer your two assertions:
First, poor countries' appropriation of these few successful drugs may MAKE future R&D efforts for ALL drugs specific to those regions economically unfeasible [even for a non-profit!!], not just this one AIDS drug. Brazil et. al is capping the only upside [even to break even alone], while doing nothing to relieve the downside and the risk.
Second, Open Source style development of drugs is an absolute and complete joke. Almost all of drug prices are the result of REAL costs. [Profit is a relatively small component of it, especially when it is adjusted for risk.] There is a world of difference between a LOOSE handfull of hackers around the world working PART TIME on a little code here and there for fun and the challenge, and that that is required to get a drug off the ground. It requires a vastly different mindset, not to mention a great deal of resources(The great costs still must be shouldered by society, minus a little bit of profit). You also can't ignore the time involved and the relative lack of reward per dollar/time/etc.
No, government MIGHT be able to manage it, but not a bunch of people poking around. However, it'd still cost society just as much money, maybe even more. Those costs may be borne out more evenly if government does it, but that's also kind of the point of insurance/HMOs (in theory).
Anyways, you miss the point, MIGHT != IS. If GNU/GPL/Whatever can do it cheaper and better and faster, let them. But until that time, only ONE system (IP + profit) really delivers; don't break it just because you have a theory.
Heres the difference - anyone who knows anything about chemistry knows that's ridiculous. The oforementioned story is quite possible. Unlikely maybe, but possible. And anyone who knows anything about economics knows a long list of folks who'd be willing to be that way.
No, this world already is shit. It is shit because people like yourself feel you have some God given right to ideas and information. You would rather see millions die than let a country "steal" "IP".
Anyone who has not grown up with the whole idea of IP being forced down their throat would call that insane.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Look at it this way; if this were guns, designed to kill people, Roche would be up on profiteering charges. But it's drugs, designed to save people, so instead of being a necessity, it's a luxury. Therefore, charge what you will.
It's funny because it's true.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Here a New York Times article with a bit more information. This is apparenty pretty standard procedure in Brazil.
P -B razil-AIDS-Drugs.html?searchpv=aponline
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/A
There are a couple of very key differences in this situation:
;)
1) The ABM treaty is an agreement between STATES, and thus, an implied agreement between the people in those states (the state speaking for the people) A corporation does not speak with the voice of a people; it is an artificial entity to enable individuals to make money.
States are responsible to the people they represent. Corporations are responsible to no-one.
Unilaterally breaking a treaty is to thus break with a people - and is a far more serious kettle of fish.
States appropriate private property (for the good of the state) all the time. Usually, it's compensated for, but not always.
2) As a practical matter, a drug company has little it can do in form of retaliation. A state, however (especially a nuclear state) is not so limited. There may be serious repecussions to breaking the ABM treaty.
In many cases, unilateral treaty-breaking can be seen as an act of war. In the best of cases, it's not very damned polite.
Breaking this _particular_ treaty also has strategic implications. If one believes that an effective missile shield can be erected, then one who has missiles, but no shield, had best strike BEFORE the shield is in place.
Thankfully, the current Russian government seems to have more sense than that. I'm not sure that is univerally applicable to all nuclear powers.
By continuing on its current course of action, the current administration is walking a very thin line. It's not at all a simple case of "erect shield, protect Americans". It's more like "attempt to erect shield, piss off all other nuclear powers, invite first strike, further reputation as a treaty-breaking country not to be trusted" A military success perhaps, but a diplomatic disaster.
It would be far, FAR better to negotiate a new ABM treaty that allowed the new system (having one's cake and eating it too) than to just go ahead and build it anyway.
I'd point out that the last major Western power to ignore the terms of major military treaties and do what they wanted was Nazi Germany, but then I'd wind up invoking Godwin's Law.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
If cutting spending on advertisments resulted in an increase in profit, why do you think they do spend that much? Surely you don't think they enjoy giving money away just for the sake of advertising?
Of course, it will decrease the profits! It just won't affect the development of useful drugs.
As somebody said earlier in the discussion, money has to change hands somewhere. If drugs should be available to poor countries for free, vote in a government who will increase taxes in order to pay for these countries to receive medication.
Money don't have to change hands -- government can just use their collective buying power to force companies to accept slightly lower profit margins, what will be healthy for both people and the economy. Don't forget that drug companies have obscenely high profit margins, and spent most of their time, money and effort on the development of expensive but nonessential products and incrementl enhancement of existing ones.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
For Roche themselves, the company mentioned in this article. From part of their 2000 annual report, in a PDF ("Finance") available at: http://www.roche.com/home/investor/inv-finance/inv -reports/inv-reports-2000-annual-report.htm
Marketing and distribution 8,746 (2000) 7,813 (1999)
Research and development 3,950 (2000) 3,782 (1999)
Numbers are in millions of Swiss francs.
Clear enough?
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
wrong - R&D funds are actually on par with advertising, marketing, and CEO salaries of the Big Pharm Corps. If their R&D budgets were at risk they can cut back on Mr Fat Cat.
Anyway, are you really so gullible to think that a Pharm Co would not do R&D ? that's like General Motors deciding not to build new models of cars. Its counter to common business sense.
Profits from a single drug like TYlenol are so vast that the R&D costs are easily met. You're jkust spouting a typical conservative argument that favors $$ and BigCorps over common sense.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
It is quite possible to have state-sponsored medical research without having to have state ownership of the drug companies.
One way to do it is similar to the military procurement process - put it up for competitive bid.
The state puts aside funds for a certain purpose - say a cure for AIDS. Some of those funds are front-loaded to drug companies seeking the contract. The rest is used for milestone bonuses, and a REALLY big bonus at the end for the first company to find the cure. Once the cure is found, release the formula to the world as public domain.
As long as the money is good, there's no reason why you won't see drug companies signing up - especially as R&D usually has spinoffs.
The world doesn't need to be pure capitalist or pure communist. A decent mix of the best of both gets a lot more done.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
The statement
Drug patents make me sick
Might well be a true statement, if you're too poor to aford the drugs which are overpriced due to patents, and you end up sick because of it.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Thank you. I never knew that, though it certainly shoots down the troll's "good genes" theory, doesn't it?
It's such an intellectual passtime, a real thinking-man's game.
Left. Left. Left. Hey, another Left. etc.
What intellectual giants.
If you're gonna be into racing, don't watch NASCAR. Watch rally racing, where they have drivers with skill.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I could go on for a while on a lot of these various points, but its probably not worth it, so I'll leave it at this.
ah... the joys of development...
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Your examples are absurd. Bayer asperin (sp?) competes successfully with generics precisely because of the market recognition and trust that developed as a result of Bayer's patent protection. And I would love to understand exactly why corporations are going to form consortia to do research and spend huge amounts of clinical trials and FDA hoops and marketing costs just to bring to market a drug which they brand but cannot realize proportionately large profits from.
As for your example of defense spending...I seriously hope you don't want to use defense spending as an example of how the government really should be allocating resources. They have achieved wonderful technologies, to be sure, but at ridiculously high costs that few can deny. And from your stances I hazard a bet that you are just the sort of person who probably decries government military spending all the time except just now. Don't you ?
I doubt step 1 is "reverse" engineer as happens with software or computer chips and their microcode.
A U.S. Patent has to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention without undue experimentation. Otherwise, it is an invalid patent (here). Also, in the U.S. a New Drug Application, or NDA (or even an Abbreviated New Drug Application, ANDA) ends up explaining the forumulation of the drug. Although NDAs and ANDAs are not public documents, Brazil's equivalent of the FDA probably has them.
Although formulations can vary from country to country, it is probably just a matter of looking up the recipe.
There's a rather good BBC production called The Human Body. One of the episodes looked into the development of ethics. The ethical problem was "should you steal drugs to save your dying <familymember/>".
Children aged 8-9 inevitably said "no". The concept of stealing (to them) was totally wrong and there was no justification for it.
Children aged 12+ were less decisive. In an ethical judgement between death and theft the children agreed that theft is the lesser evil.
So it's depressing to discover how many people here have the ethical development of an 8 year old.
ANY kind of human contact can transmit a disease. Touching, talking, kissing, sharing eating utensils ... all of these can be potentially deadly actions.
Our "freedom in human contact" destroys families.
I claim that there is nothing inherently morally wrong with consensual sex.
Actually, you were busy claiming that I was arguing against human contact. I saw no arguments about morals. That's the problem with you people - you focus way too much on the physical aspect of everything.
Our "sexual freedom" does not always destroy families. It does not always ruin lives. It does not always transmit disease. It does not always encourage disloyalty, nor disfunction, nor distrust.
Sure. I'll agree. However, I wasn't saying that all of those things always happened. I was saying that your chances of destroying families, ruining lives, and encouraging disloyalty, dysfunction, and distrust are significantly higher. In fact, the more you do it, the higher your probabilities climb towards 1.
Nothing inherently morally wrong with consensual sex? Tell that to the little boy whose dad ditched him because he just wanted to have fun with his mom when they got all hot and heavy at the drive-in. Tell that to the guys who wish their wives could sex 'em up like so-and-so did.
Try to get that one past the parents who would like to teach their children some kind of morality.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
It really, really sucks that sex causes AIDS. That's why it's such a successful disease. But if someone told me, "Having sex, especially outside of a truly monogamous relationship, might kill you," I would at least think seriously about commiting to one person, or to my right hand.
I am aware that breaking this patent is saving -- well, really prolonging -- lives. But you could say the same for so many other things! I could steal all the food out of grocery stores and feed the hungry! I could steal all the drugs out of the drugstore and heal the sick! I could kill drug dealers to keep kids off of drugs, and steal money from my neighbor to fix my pickup truck and pay for school, etc. etc.
I am not being selfish; I have nothing to lose here. Nobody is taking anything from me, so perhaps I should mind my own business. But I am not being selfish by insisting that people (and governments) should not steal things!
I am NOT saying that the Swiss drug companies are not perhaps immoral for demanding a high price from a poor country. But likewise, if I want to buy something or rent something and think the price is unreasonable, that does NOT give me the right to take it -- or you, or your government.
-Omar
One must remember that the root purpose of patents is to promote the public good. In certain circumstances, I think that governments are completely justified in breaking patent protections in order to deal with major issues.
that being said, I think that if the government can afford to, emminant domain makes more sense than all-out infringement. But it may not be an option for Brazil.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In fact the United States didn't honour copyright either, they only did so at the beginning of the 20. century. So many popular works were blatantly copied in the USA and the Government didn't even do as much as raise a finger about that. So the USA only began to be concerned about international IP-Laws, when it fit their bill, and when the US american business would profit from it.
Sorry, i don't see anything wrong, with other countries making their own laws with regard to IP-laws. Especially regarding the current state of US american IP-legislation (apparently the product the USA are most eager to export). Maybe it will help to create more sensible international IP-legislation, but most of all, it'll help to break monopolies built solely on ip-laws. Such monopolies are not a good thing, the restrictions of IP-legislation like the DMCA does more harm than good to international R&D.
Where before the industry, the science and the technical knowledge was employed to establish the status quo and cheat 'poorer' countries out of their rich natural resources, now IP-laws are put to work. Japan did the right thing, when they decided 'learn' from other countries to bootstrap their industrial revolution about 1980. Why shouldn't other countries now do the same. Why should these countries consider themselves bound by legislation that originated in the USA and mostly benefits other countries, not them? Why adopt and enforce laws, that hurt their own business?
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
It's a paradoxycal situation. The point here is that somebody somewhere is treating human lives as monetary value, which doesn't strike me as very ethically appleasing.
Maybe there _is_ a manner to settle this, and it's actually so simple that I'm surprised nobody evern mentioned it.
Some UN-funded agency could simply BUY the patents for some life-saving drugs from the holders (thus ensuring proper compensation for the development) and then license them free-of-charge to anybody willing to produce them (thus ensuring price-lowering via free market competition), or even just putting the patents in the Public Domain.
Sure, such an UN agency would probably be a big drain on UN funding, but I as a citizen of a "developed" country am willing to give some of my tax money for such ethically-compelling matters, and I am sure many others would agree.
"
What's so different between R&D'ing software, and then patenting it to protect it, to be able to sell it, and R&D'ing a drug, so you can patent it, and sell it?
"
Chemical patents generally read something along the lines of
$company has discovered $big-chemical-structure which is known to inhibit $disease.
Software patents read something along the lines of
$company has discovered the idea of a cure for $disease
A chemical patent covers the only method & implementation. A software patent covers the idea behind. The method is already protected via copyright.
The other reason is medical reserach doesn't have a monopolistic tendancy in the same way that software does.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
-Omar
The U.S. Government did all the R&D for ddI. They could not market it so they used some selection process to license it to Bristol Meyers Squibb (BMS) for ten years. BMS turns around and goes for the jugular when Thailand tries to klone ddI. Eventually this happened:
-----
* Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 19:47:24 -0500 (EST)
THAILAND WILL PRODUCE GENERIC DDI POWDER
The Thai Ministry of Public Health today announced that it will not apply compulsory license but that it will let the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) produce the powder of ddI. About 100 activists had gathered outside the Ministry of Public Health to hear the decision of the Public Health Minister.
ddI powder is not patent protected in Thailand. One sachet will cost $0.7 (equivalent to 150 mg); daily cost will therefore be $ 1.4 compared to currently about $ 3.7 No generic tablets will be available because of the patent.
The problem with ddI is the expensive raw material because there is only one relatively small supplier in Canada. Raw material from a Japanese producer is only 55% of the cost but this is the BMS supplier and BMS has prevented the company from selling to other customers. If BMS would be interested to actually do something for people they could offer ddI at a daily cost of probably less than $ 1.0!
No discount for the BMS product has been announced so far.
There are many open questions:
As reason for not applying compulsory license the Ministry of Public Health quoted fear for a BMS law suit and lacking support from the Dept of Intellectual Property. The Dept. of Intellectual Property said that they were "worried" to use compulsory license but refused to name reasons. Several activists questioned why compulsory license is in the law if it can not be used.
The Public Health Minister was asked why ddI powder was not produced already two years ago; he replied that he was not yet Health Minister at that time.
The NGO network had demanded compulsory license for ddI since last year and had also demanded the production of ddI powder as an interim solution. NGO representatives will meet with the US ambassador to Thailand tomorrow, Tuesday to hand over a letter to President Clinton asking for a statement that the US government will not interfere if Thailand uses compulsory license for ddI.
Tido von Schoen-Angerer, MD
MSF Thailand
msfdrugs@asianet.co.th-th-th-end
(remove "-th-th-end" to reply)
Stupid jackass... are you too terrified to go to web sites on your own? How about Pfizer:
Selling, informational, and administrative expenses: $11,442,000,000
R&D expenses: $4,435,000,000
Merck?
$6 billion on marketing, $2 billion on R&D.
GlaxoSmithKline? They call themselves a "research company"...
$10 billion on "selling, general, and administrative"
$3.8 billion on R&D.
I still can't find information on what Bayer spent on marketing.
All this information is from the companies' annual reports, available for free on their web sites, and this is hardly damning evidence that corps are evil. But it's pretty clear that they do spend way more on marketing than on development.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."