Slashdot Mirror
Offshoring Trends Net Biotech Firms
Makarand writes "According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, BioTech, once considered to be
the next innovative sector to help offset the jobs losses from IT offshoring, is
showing
signs of riding an
offshoring wave of its own. Foreign governments with a national
priority to attract biotech businesses with highly trained research workers and new
research centers are the new forces to reckon with in preventing the
exodus of biotech
jobs. Drug developers are looking at ways to cut costs of drug development as Americans and their employers are starting to constantly worry about the high price of prescription drugs. The lower costs of clinical trials and the ease with which human subjects can be recruited for drug tests in other countries are making biotech jobs susceptible to offshoring."
Is anyone else not surprised at all?
Businesses outsource, even tech ones, even biotech ones now.
Shocking.
Oh, and f1r57 p057!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't outsourcing a shining example of capitalism working exactly as it should? People always get so bent out of shape about it, but fundamentally it's rewarding the people/countries who are willing and able to do the same work for less. If you look at the unequal distribution of wealth as a problem (which I do), then the good news is that poor countries will get richer, as will the uber-rich that now have to pay their workforce less. The bad news is for the middle class. American left-wingers would do well to remember that the people receiving out-sourced jobs probably need them more than Americans. And American right-wingers would do well to remember that unless they're very rich, they're likely getting shafted.
Sometimes there are subtle differences between the label and generic drug(s) that can justify the label drug.
One particular case is thyroid hormone replacement therapy, where it is generally accepted practice to not switch product, whether it be generic->label (synthroid) or label->generic. Doing so requires recalibrating your thyroid hormone levels...
Many times, patients want the label drug...
Doctors tend to leave the decision of what drug to actually fulfill the prescription with to the pharmacist...
Some health insurance plans have acceptable formularies that only include generics where possible or policies that pharmacists must provide generic instead of label, where possible.
I see one of the big reasons for offshoring as the current medical system. The ridiculous costs of attempting healthcare for workers is one of the costs of employing people.
Offshoring doesn't carry that burden. Health care should be 100% unrelated to employer packages
Ironic
RST
The problem is not just that this is an export of jobs for cheap labor, that is a short terms consideration. Unfortuantely in the long term this sort of thing is an export of knowledge, knowledge that we spend alot of money aquiring and that is now being pissed away by greedy corporate executives to boost profitmargins. It sucks to see valuable technology exported to keep a few greedy arseholes in silk shirts and sportscars.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The lower costs of clinical trials and the ease with which human subjects can be recruited for drug tests in other countries are making biotech jobs susceptible to offshoring.
Does anybody else finds this... well... horrible and sinister? So, just because consumers want a modicum of security -- and security means more expenses -- big pharma is outsourcing human testing?
As in, testing potentially dangerous new products on poor (non caucasian, perhaps?) people is sooooo much cheaper in [insert favourite country here]?
So, on one hand these big companies are making tons of dough off their rich consumers. Then, they refuse to sell certain drugs *cough cough* AIDS *cough cough* in poor countries (no enough profits to be made in Africa, mate!). Then, they put pressure on third-world countries (Brazil, India, etc) who decide to copy these products anyway.
Then , they simply outsource human testing, because "we big corporations have a God-given right to make even more profit ". Even if it means less security and more unemployed.
Is this sick or what?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
"According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, BioTech, once considered to be the next innovative sector to help offset the jobs losses from IT offshoring
I know this is sometimes hard for Americans to understand, but the US is not the only nation with advanced research and development. And just because the US likes to think of biotech and computers as "American" technologies industries, they have always been, and continue to be, international efforts.
Note, also, that European and Asian companies have been "off-shoring" to the US for decades: a lot of their R&D, marketing, and financial services have been located in the US.
Foreign governments with a national priority to attract biotech businesses with highly trained research workers and new research centers are the new forces to reckon with in preventing the exodus of biotech jobs.
After decades during which the US has siphoned off the best and brightest from all around the globe ("brain drain"), with high-paying jobs and a good standard of living, it is only natural that other nations are finally trying to do something about it. The real question is why this hasn't happened earlier. Maybe nations like Britain will finally pay their researchers a decent salary, and maybe nations like Japan will finally pay respect to their researchers.
Of course, the implications for the US are not so good: US R&D is based on highly-skilled immigrants. If that flow stops, it may temporarily create a little more demand for US workers, but it will primarily make the US overall far less competitive.
The US can do R&D like no other.
You assume that to be the case. What if it isn't true?
The USA has many of the best researchers partly because you've been able to take the cream from other countries by offering higher salaries. What if that isn't the case in the future?
How does the US prescription system work? Are doctors prescribing branded drugs over cheaper, generic drugs in order to receive funding from drug companies?
Actually, it's more the case that doctors, faced with a bewildering choice of new drugs to keep up with every single year, end up prescribing the drug that they're most familiar with. This ends up usually being the drug that they're given the most free samples of.
As far as HMOs are concerned, they have a list of drugs and their generic equivalents, and if you use the brand name, you'd better have a damn good reason for doing so.
The only people getting funding from drug companies are researchers, and clinical test sites. For regular folks (ie, doctors, interns, etc.) they get a lot of swag and free drug samples (as well as seminars, etc.), but they're not supposed to get cash.
Frankly, high drug costs (at the counter, not high development costs) leading to offshoring is a red herring. The trend toward offshoring has to do more with escaping regulatory hurdles which prevent certain types of research (stem cells, anyone?), the lousy payoff in domestic drug research, and the rise of very competitive research and testing labs overseas.
But considering I work for a startup pharmaceutical company, I feel I gotta say something. Lots of people here seem to think that the HIGH costs of drugs are related to pure profit. Working as a techie in the field myself, I'm really surprised people don't know that the high costs has more to do with spending $10-20 MILLION dollars to get a drug through the FDA then it does with trying to make a profit on it.
It's no wonder people go overseas...drugs are a LOT easier to produce there..
And yes, $10 million is usually the minimum amount of money needed to get APPROVAL to get a single drug into the marketplace in the US. Anyone else knows of a better way to sell a product that costs $10 million + production costs to produce BEFORE they see a profit?
Honestly, you have better luck with a Krispy Kreme donut.....
Do you think that identical products cost the same across the world? No, businesses charge what the market will bear. They can and do buy the same things you do, for less than you do. Cars, mobile phones, PCs, houses, and the ultimate sign of a civilised society... MacDonalds.
It doesn't drag *everyone* down, it's dragging you down at the moment. The money flows in, their local market economy improves, eventually their costs go up and they have more difficulty competing on price alone. In the meantime, the money flows out of America, the economy becomes poorer and the value decreases.
There will be a levelling out, but expect it to take a while.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Given that some of the best minds are overseas, isn't it a tad arrogant to view it all as 'outsourcing'? In some cases, the US is probably buying overseas expertise, which is not available in the US? Consequently, the US is benefiting and learning from India (and others), not the other way around.
The problem for the Empire was that it gradually outsourced everything to the provinces - the grain supply (Egypt), mining, other agriculture. Like the US it imported the most able provincials and gave them citizenship to encourage them to support the system. But eventually the focus of power moved to the provinces, Rome itself became decadent (who needed to earn a proper living?) Even most of the army was recruited abroad. And the Empire collapsed. The remains of the Empire that survived - in Byzantium - was a statist civilisation in which capitalism was rigorously controlled, based around many small artisans and companies of very limited size, in which the Government interfered in production, distribution and exchange. Sound like anywhere?
Endless outsourcing may be capitalism, but what happens on the day when R&D is carried out abroad, manufacturing is all done abroad, the Internet, cheap broadcasting and cheaper film making has destroyed the US dominance in media, the US army is too small to control even a small dissident country (look at the problems posed by Iraq...we could kill everybody, but imagine the backlash), the rest of the world sees that the Emperor has no clothes, and the dollar collapses?
Live off intellectual property? Can you imagine the rest of the world agreeing to observe US patents which frequently would not get through the assessment stage in European countries?
At that point the super-rich will be sitting on piles of worthless dollars, and farming may look like the smart option again.
OK, it probably won't be that bad. But too much policy at the moment seems to be predicated on the idea that the US can control the rest of the world financially or militarily, and the example of Rome shows that unrestricted capitalism is likely to destroy the very factors that make that possible.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Or are you the kind of person that wants to have his cake and eat it, resell it, outsource it, etc...?
Sure, why not? America doesn't owe the rest of the world a damned thing. Other countries are perfectly free to pass their own laws in that regard, if that's what they wish to do. But as an American, I'm not obliged to look out for the interest of any other nation or people. I can if I like, as an individual, but I'm not *obligated* to - nor is my government.
The government of America is for Americans, and no one else. It's that simple. If corporations wish to essentially become foreign entities by moving jobs and resources to foreign nations, then they should be treated as such. In fact, so far as I'm concerned they should simply move their entire operation to that nation, register as a corporation of that nation, and be treated as such by the American government. They deserve no handouts, no tax breaks, no protection under American law, and no benefit from American trade agreements with other nations.
Let's see how long those former American companies last when they're wholly Indian in both name and law. Let's see how well they do when they have to operate on the other side of a tariff barrier.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
No, the right question is: what jobs can't be offshored? And the answer is damned few of them -- only those that truly require a physical presence.
And guess what? Technology reduces the number of jobs that require a physical presence. You think the fact that offshoring is happening right now is an accident? No, it's because we now have the communications technology to make it practical.
So the only question left is what all the extra competition is going to do. I think it's going to destroy the global economy, as corporations take the extra profit and distribute it to those who already have the most money: executive staff, board members, and investors.
In short, I think this will destroy what little middle class the world has left, and put us squarely back in the middle ages when people were either insanely rich or dirt poor.
In fact, because offshoring forces entire economies to compete with each other with the price of labor, and thus the standard of living, being the only variable, I think we'll start to see some countries start to use prison labor to compete. That'll definitely take us back to the dark ages.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Is he overly optimistic? yes.
Is he wrong? No.
I am outside the country, and I will tell you this. The US has massive buisness and hightech advantages over the rest of the word. Stemming not only from America's relatively unique culture (yes, there is culture in the US), but also it's massivley agressive and competative buisness support industries; which I'm sorry but don't really exist out side the US.
Americans ARE allowed to fail, without massive pressure. This is something not found in places like Asia (also known for having the worlds highest suicide rates). Remember Failure is the single most important ingrediant in Success. If you do not take failure well, you will never be a winner in business.
Americans are HIGHLY individualistic, and have thick skins. They(we) don't get bent out of shape over personal failures, or insults. Note to Americans: Most other cultures do not take well to being 'teased'.
Americans are risk takers, in the extreme (go find me another country with a higher rate of gambling addiction).
Americans are work aholics; it's not tacky to ask an American what he/she does for a living, and in many cases even how much he/she makes. Americans define themselves by their work.
Americans are brash, loud, and arogant. All great ways to get noticed.
Americans have NO idea what the world is like outside their shores. It's a double edge sword. If Americans were poor they'd stay that way, but since their wealthy, the world tends to emulate them. Meaning they are always the leed dog.
Will it always be that way? Every dog has his day. But that day, is not today.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Sure, from the safety of the upper class, and with most of your income being from investments, outsourcing looks great - all that cheap stuff available at Target, eh? But if you're 50, have two kids and a mortgage, and happen to, say, be an engineer for a telcom, hearing that your getting laid off "will be good for the American economy in the long run" isn't much solace.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
The idea that all people are just as suited for testing drugs is very incorrect. For a drug trial to truly translate to an American population, it would have to be performed on a population with roughly the same ethnic mix and environment. It is not at all unusual for drugs and poisons to effect various populations differently.
An example of this is PCBs. The original tests on PCBs back in the 50s and 60s were performed on an Indian (as in from India) population. They found a fairly high risk of cancer and that is why we started working to reduce and eventually nearly eliminate PCB usage in America. Interestingly, later tests on other ethnic groups found that ethnic groups of European and African descendency demonstrated virtually no cancer response to PCBs. Indians were the worst with other Oriental groups showing decreased, but still present cancer responses. The cancer response amongst the Japanese was the least of the Oriental groups, though still present. This in no way says that we shouldn't have reduced our usage of PCBs since there are people of Oriental descendency in our society, but it does demonstrate that medical tests do not always translate even at a gross level from one group to another. If we had never tested PCBs on people of Oriental origin, we wouldn't have banned them.
In many ways, there is a more disconcerting flip side to this that has been largely ignored by the so-called "medical science" (I put that in quotes because they ignore so many factors, it is hard to say that they are a legitimate science). The flip side is that because we ignore ethnic origin and many "how they live their life" type factors of the people involved in tests and we don't work hard to identify the factors that cause failure in a drug for the typically small percentage that do have adverse effects with many otherwise beneficial drugs, we are very likely missing out on many drugs that might be very beneficial. Biology is not blind to these factors and we shouldn't be either if we truly want to call it or make it a science.
The genetic sciences are probably the answer. Eventually, we should see a process evolve of prescribing drugs according to genetic tests that determine precisely how a particular individual will respond. At that point in time, they can hide the ethnic factor by talking about the gene that interferes with the test instead of the ethnic groups that typically have that gene.