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Global Access To University-Derived Medicines
Nicholas Stine writes, "Universities should make their patented biomedical innovations accessible to those in poor countries, according to a consensus statement signed by dozens of international global health leaders. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, a student group active at over 30 universities in North America, drafted the Philadelphia Consensus Statement urging universities to adopt licensing policies that would facilitate access to all university-derived medicines in developing countries. Notable signatories include 28 non-governmental organizations, four Nobel laureates, Justice Edwin Cameron of the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health."
The problem is that the Universities are not the ones manufacturing these life saving medicines and processes, it's the drug companies. Asking Universities to provide access to their discoveries would reduce the value of their discoveries on the open market (since there'd now be multiple companies licensed to sell the product, one of which may not have needed to pay for the right). In such a scenario, what incentive does the research institute have to develop the drugs and medical devices other than government grants?
The Consensus statement suggests that Universities should be "engaging with nontraditional partners, such as public-private partnerships or developing country institutions, creating new opportunities for drug development, and carving out neglected disease research exemptions in any university patents or licenses". So in other words, instead of selling their patents and discoveries to drug companies, they should be giving it away? What incentive would one of these "nontraditional partners" have to sell a $50 drug for $.05 when they could sell it on the black market for $5.00?
Drugs will not solve the long term problems in developing countries, they'll just make them worse. Many of these countries do not have the natural resources to handle their populations. This lack of resources leads to many of the diseases that our drugs are supposed to fix (plus many other problems, such as the constant wars and corruption present in Africa). Sending them cheap drugs puts more strain on existing resources, since more people are able to survive in an area that can't support them. We need to attack the root cause of their problems: corruption, overpopulation, lack of education (particularly sex education), and sanitation. Once these are solved/improved, the need for access to new miracle drugs is greatly reduced.
In short, the consortium is barking up the wrong tree. They should be trying to pursuade drug manufacturers to ship more reduced/free products to these third world countries. That would provide the benefits they are looking for, while not reducing the drug's value and risking future research investments. I'm not saying this is a great idea either, but it doesn't nearly the same negative impact as giving away the patent or production methods.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
untries: MY NUTS
University funding plummets as drug companies refuse to allow others to reduce their profits by giving away the fruits of research for which they paid. Nice sentiment. Terrible idea.
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Great Cthulhu..."
Some of these universities have made hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments from the pharma companies. You think they are going to give up that gravy train so that dark people won't suffer and die? Universities are run by classic Limousine Liberals -- all for social programs unless it hits *their* cash flow.
Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.
"In short, the consortium is barking up the wrong tree. They should be trying to pursuade drug manufacturers to ship more reduced/free products to these third world countries. That would provide the benefits they are looking for, while not reducing the drug's value and risking future research investments. I'm not saying this is a great idea either, but it doesn't nearly the same negative impact as giving away the patent or production methods."
Or they could become part of the system and contribute financially and otherwise to the creation and distribution of needed drugs. Asking those who take all the risks for a free handout (ala world bank) isn't the best idea. Becoming part of the solution is.
1) Governments around the world uses their tax dollars to hire the scientists currently working at private companies attracting them with offers of better working conditions, pay, moral goodness and freedom from harassment
That is the only step, really. Of course, governments around the world were always known as notoriously good at getting hold of things already produced, assuming that future production will sort itself out.
If the medicine is developed with government grants then yes, it ought to be available to all citizens of the country that developed it. Whether or not it's available to other countries is a matter for larger debate, where I tend to think the answer is yes - asking some 3rd world country to solve its health problems by inventing the drugs it needs probably doesn't work. If a university researches a drug with corporate money, well, they got in bed with a partner for research money and shouldn't be surprised if the partner wants their piece of the pie. Perhaps what they should call for is for Universities to not accept funding from corporations to do research for them.
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
Please read parent and consider moderating it positively.
Only about half of all medical research is privately funded, yet most new medicines end up being patented and owned by private companies. Shouldn't the people (US! the public!) who pay for the research be the ones who decide how it is used? In a democratic society, the people would actually own what they pay for and would choose to use it for the good of the worlds population. Too bad we live in a corporate oligarchy. We subsidize (or socialize if that's your bad word) the costs and risks of research, but we privatize the benefits so that only a few rich shareholders can profit while millions die of preventable diseases. We need a revolution.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Last time I checked, Universities don't make drugs. Doing the research on which a drug is based is the cheap/easy part. Taking a lead compound through development, animal testing, Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 Clinical Trials is the expensive/hard part. Univerities don't do the hard part. So sure, let them share all the drugs they've developed.
OK, I'll bite on your flamebait.
Yes liberal and left wing causes are the root of all evil and by definition absurd and credibility destroying. Never mind that capitalism is guaranteed to kill us all. I'm pretty sure there is not a single socialist idea that threatens the future of humanity as a species. I cannot say the same for capitalism and the mindless fools who believe in it.
Now on the topic at hand, university medicines for developing nations is pretty much a waste of time. If its not penicillin, aspirin or quinine then don't bother. The majority of medicine is a sham, and one designed for profit at that.
What the developing world needs is for developed nations to stop living irresponsibly, and to stop aspiring to "developed" status themselves. Under capitalism we cannot all be rich, by definition, the vast majority must be destitute and starving. For capitalism to prolong its destruction of humanity for as long as possible then developing nations must remain undeveloped. The entire world cannot work at exorbitant unionized wages. (Note what you consider left wing / liberal is just selfish enablers of the capitalist world destroying machine.)
Now fuck off and die asshole.
It's the "expert syndrome". Too many highly intelligent people think that because they are an expert in one field, they are automatically qualified in another field. Thus you have physicists signing petitions for medical or global warming causes, thinking their expertise as a physicist someone carries into completely unrelated fields.
I have no problem with Nobel laureates signing as a private person, but I agree, they cheapen themselves when they use their award to gain status.
-- Will program for bandwidth
This reminds me of my petition that everybody capable of contributing to the development of lifesaving drugs drop whatever their current career is--be it software developer, accountant, homemaker, whatever--and dedicate the rest of their lives to developing lifesaving medicines.
Because, hey, if we can, then it's immoral not to.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
> These guys are always attaching their names to feel-good petitions and liberal/left wing causes.
So says 'Adult film producer ' ?!?
Perhaps the 'liberal / left wing' attracts those with higher IQs and knee jerk tough guy high school libertarian responses come from fat white guys? If I want medicine, I'll take the Nobel guys. I make my own porn, thanks anyway.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
each of those has only has a 15% chance of making your dick hard (unless you are a woman, in which case it always works). Side effects include nausea, dry mouth, heaves, ebola, and a high probability of catching the flu.
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
Even more, they get to claim a moral high ground, knowing it won't cost *them* anything. It's a highbrow way of saying "Hell yeah, I'm for helping the poor! You go first, won't you, buddy? I'm a little light this week."
BTW, ever notice that the countries that are the poorest are frequently also the least free? (in terms of personal and economic freedom)
And before someone pipes up saying "The United Nations should administer the programme" please have a read about the spectacular success of the UN Oil-For-Food Programme, first.
The depth and dynamic of the problem(s) to which this statement is meant to speak, is far greater than the relatively naive, albeit well meaning, process proposed. In addition to heeding the incentive, commodity abuse/manipulation, economies of scope/scale issues and failed resolve targeting that have already been brought to light by my fellow slashers, I would recommend the drafting body behind this project read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.
Scary but enlightening mirrors are yummy...
SLR-
And before you make the predictable response about the "National Socialism" in Germany in the forties, the Nazis thought what they were doing was right, the key difference about American capitalists of the 21st century is that they know what they are doing is wrong, they just don't care.
So somehow as a taxpayer in the U.S.A. who funded that research I should still be charged outrageous skyrocketing prices if I need it, but somehow people in foregin countries somehow deserve it more than I do and should have it given to them? I might well accept an argument that public funded medical research should have certain restrictions put on it's prices, but those restrictions should start with saying that the taxpayers who funded it should be charged no more than others who did not fund it (including Canadians and Europeans), not allow the patent holders to charge even more locally to offset giving the stuff away to "the poor". Lets not even get into discussions of how such giveaways usually enrich a corrupt government and seldom get to the targeted people, it's not even relivant in this case.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
So what you're saying is that drug corporations should have to open up their IP, too. That their patents create artificial monopolies built on investments by the public, often from traditional development of material and techniques. That their corporate profits compete with the lives and health of the world that supports their corporations.
Funny how you pronounced that as "all that essential science should stay in monopoly hands, away from the public good".
--
make install -not war
...And by definition a funder of university drug research in SOME cases, I have a significant problem with this idea (that drug I pay to have created are forced to be sold cheaper somewhere else). And I am sure that should such silliness be attempted, a regulation preventing goverment funding will not be used in such a manner. and then you can kiss off university research !
I do know that profits on patents held by universities alows them to retain the best talent, and therefore continue innovative and ground-breaking work. Everyone benefits, believe it or not.
I am all for the common good, but not when 'student groups' decide that socialism is good for me and mine ! And I am sure that once thier folks or the taxpayers quit paying thier tuition, they will feel the same way. Remember the saying 'A liberal is a Conservative who has yet to be mugged'...
"Furthermore, this is university research. Over 95% of it is paid for with public money- money given to them by government grants."
Proof? Or is this another example of neither region numbers? And even if the research was paid for by public funds, the raw research will do no good without the practical work that private industry does to make certain the end result is safe and usable.
People who want free stuff say: "give stuff away for free"
...then I say we give away contraceptives. Lots of them. For free.
People are starving in Africa, disease is a big problem, and overpopulation is a global issue. Give them lots of contraceptives and a little sex ed, and watch as things start getting cleared up.
The other option is to just leave them alone and let half of Africa continue blasting away at itself with AK-47's, but I don't see that working all that well either. Better to not have kids than to just let them shoot one another.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
What I don't understand is why it's okay for people to go into just about every other career for the money, but if someone in science decides to make a buck they're evil. I made ~16k per year while a graduate student. My friends who went into business made ~60k out of college. Five years later I made ~40k as a post-doc (on the high-end of the salary scale). My friends were up to 100k. As an Assistant Professor I make ~70k (on the high end). All of my friends from college make over 100k, and most make over 150k. My work isn't easier either. I put in a minimum of 60 hours per week, and when writing grants I often put in 80+ hours. My friends who are making over 100k per year - a 'tough week' is one where they work over 50 hours. If a scientist put in the blood, sweat, and tears to produce a patent that actually produces money (most don't), then all the more power to them. And people wonder why the younger (American) generation aren't interested in a career in science.
Because your funding is coming from the Government, not from yourself!!!
I REALLY resent all of the University profs who get their money from Government grants, patent something, make a ton of money, and NONE of it goes back to the Taxpayer. You're basically getting fat off of the backs of the average citizen.
It used to be that Profs did research for the enjoyment of it, and they shared their research far more willingly. That's all changed since Academia bribed Congress into one of the biggest giveaways in the history of America. And quite frankly, innovation has taken a serious nose dive.
This is just Academic welfare.
Yep, you read the subject right. It's the law of supply and demand at work.
See, people choose science careers because they *like* science. It's got a number of nonfinancial perks and rewards, such as being interesting, inciting passion, and satisfying a deep feeling of altruism.
Compare/contrast that with some business - say, importing iron. Not knocking the importance of the iron importers, as they serve a vital role in the economy, but it's not a particularly intellectually stimulating line of work.
Now, if you (like me) are of the scientific bend, are you going to actually want to get into the business of importing iron? Is it something that ignites your passion, that you were curious about as a kid?
Me neither. So to compensate, importing iron has a rather low requirement for entry, and a rather high payback on investment. (Can you read? Can you breathe? Feel like starting a business? You're probably qualified...)
And so people are willing to put up with reduced economics in order to benefit from the nonfinancial perks of science, to do science. Nothing strange or unusual - just the laws of a (relatively) free marketplace at work.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Im picking on you here, but there are others whose responses are equally off-target.
... new miracle drugs is greatly reduced."
Read the Consensus Statement again. Closely.
Then start to realise that the purpose of this Consensus statement isnt to jack your profits or make your hard work all for nought or any of that rubbish you seem to be touting.
Imagine this:
A company has obtained the rights to produce and distribute a particular drug from a university. They are intending to distribute it to America and maybe England or Australia and maybe even parts of Europe. Its a new drug that costs maybe 200 bucks a course of pills. The pharmacy(drug store) might get 50 bucks out of that 200, the pharmaceutical company gets 150, of which alot has been spent on manufacturing and transport. They also pay royalites to the University. Leaving them with enough money to profit, finance some r&d of their own and so on.
They dont send this drug to the developing countries, its too expensive for the comapny to even consider, especially when you take into account the transport costs, and the low chance of anyone even being able to afford the damn things.
So there is an unequitable distribution of the drugs, the company has no intentions of distributing to the poorer countries, and the countries cant afford it.
The consensus doesnt want to mess with the profit of the areas above, it is suggesting that local pharmaceutical companies in poor countries be licensed to create the drug on a no-royalty basis, for distribution only within the country considered to be 'poor'
Its not the horrible profit eater you describe.
You also mention the black market, and you are correct in stating that the drug company in the developing country might try and sell the drug for cheap, you will get more spam offering 'cheap folagron' or whatever, but no actual harm is being done to anyone's profits. Its nigh on impossible to ship drugs into coutnries without some form of question being asked, and 5 bucks a pop isnt exactly profit central for drug smugglers, they are better off risking their lives (death sentence for drug smuggling in many 3rd world countries) for a more profitable and less legal drug.
"Sending them cheap drugs puts more strain on existing resources
See now this is a legitimate point. They need the education more than they need the drugs, but sadly they arent really ready for the education we can give them. Many attempts to educate 3rd world communities end up causing the educated to leave the communities, leaving behind the elders stuck in the old ways. Its sad, and its not working well, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt be trying.
Ultimately we need a better plan for 3rd world health, this is certainly an improvement over the existing situation, and does need to be considered.
I have skimmed over the NEGLECTED DISEASES and MEASURE RESEARCH SUCCESS ACCORDING TO IMPACT ON HUMAN WELFARE sections of the consensus, as have pretty much all the other posts when I started writing this. They are important because they represent a drive to reward research into diseases that affect third world countires more than the US, meaning that research into diseases caused by unpotable water, badly cooked food or exposure can be undertaken. It also calls for a re-alignment of the metrics of Research Success, stating that net benefit to the human race should be our main metric, not patents and royalties. Both of these are noble goals that will aid thrid world countries as much if not more than cheap drugs.
Can't we all just get along
...everybody signed the declaration except the actual people doing and paying for the drug research.
In other news, Slashdot readers signed a petition for free computers while drivers signed another for free gas.
Excellent. I will now have even LESS motivation to innovate at the University I work at.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
"UAEM just wants to remove patent barriers in poor countries - not cut into pharma's or scientists' profits. RTFWebsite"
Do what China does and ignore them, then let the chips fall were they may. Either we end up with a good situation or we end up with an "I told you so". Either way we win.
That went perfectly mate, I mean look how much oil they got out!
$100,000 instruments, the $50,000/year grad students and post-docs, and the tens of thousands in lab maintanence fees that are necessary in order to get the work done.
These activists are hopelessly native about the scientific process. In the medical field, R&D is roughly evenly split between public and private, and completely intertwined. EVERY drug or technique developed has at least some public and private money behind it. Saying that drugs "developed by a university" should be given away for free strikes a false dichotomy. No drug is developed by universities alone, and no drug is developed privately without at least some public research supporting it.
Activists such as these (and everyone else who complains about drug prices) just needs to get over the fact that SCIENCE IS EXPENSIVE, and that someone has to pay for it.
That's un-PC enough for the GP and more descriptive then 'third world population' which includes all the third world rich (who get just dandy health care).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The claim goes, for every 1 drug that a company brings to market after years of painful research failures, there are a bunch that didn't pan out, and the one that did took years of people working tirelessly to create.
If the drug companies weren't granted monopoly distribution rights via protectionist government intervention, this basic drug research would not be possible because the basic investment would never pay back - generics would undersell the "inventor" of the drug everytime.
How sure are people of this?
Is intellectual property law really acceptible? Does it really get "goodness" into the hands of the public sooner?
Would basic drug research and development continue without intellectual property protection?
What things can and cannot be intellectual property, and why? Isn't it possible to patent a process that has business value? Suppose that someone had patented the process for doing a heart transplant and refused to allow other hospitals to do heart transplants?
The current model of IP protection is _one_ model. I'd argue that it has been badly twisted and perverted by content organizations like the MPAA/RIAA, and by brand holders like Disney, and by many others.
There may be other models that do NOT rely upon the government-sponsored artificial construct called "intellectual property", yet still allow people that work hard to be fairly compensated and still allow good contributions to be made to society.
The road that the US (and by extension, the world) is headed down is not sustainable. Soon it will be illegal to create new inventions or content without infringing on something else pre-existing, and more and more, intellectual property owners will attempt to maximally monetize their intellectual property in a direction orthogonal to or even opposite of the path of ethics and societal responsibility. And because the whole scheme is artificially created by government, no market correction can exist or happen.
I currently enjoy my livelihood because of "today's model" but I am pretty frustrted with some of the things my employer is doing because of "today's model". It's got me thinking about other ones.
Any discussion about intellectual property starts and ends with the problem of drugs - society measurably suffers because of IP protection for drug designs. The only question is - does society measurably suffer without IP protection for drug designs? The people might be willing to try "the grand experiment". But the companies that bought our legal system won't hear of it.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
... excuse me, but is this a bad time to recommend Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged?
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Teach them hit and run tactics and marksmanship.
Then profit off your private army.
It worked for almost every current national leader in Africa.
Seriously though kids die of bad cases of the shits in Africa. Lacking a treatment costing pennies.
What is the point of this discussion? Would it be nice if everything was peachy and everybody was kind to everybody else?
This is /. rather then asking underfunded universities to give up revenue we should be asking hot chicks to give up pussy to geeks. The odds are better.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Is it just me or does it seem like this article has brought out a high percentage of astroturfers. Reading highly modded comments like "Universities don't make drugs, dummy! They just license them to drug companies at which point it's completely out of their hands." and "If you don't pay market price for your life-saving drugs then no one will do research and the terrorists win!" I hope these are astroturfers, anyways.
First, at least, read the opening of the Consensus Statement.
Oh no! Someone's suggested charging poor people a price they can afford for the drugs they need to survive the multitude of plagues that they suffer through! And they've also suggested universities research "less profitable" diseases! This is a horrible idea. Because... um... free market... invisible hand... survival of the fittest... blah blah blah.
If you're sick and dying, you can't work, you can't support your family, you can't even protest the fact that you're sick and dying. Now, in many of these cases, either A) no rich people have your disease and so no big university/company has funded enough research to find a treatment or B) not enough rich people have had your disease for long enough so the treatment created by a big university/company is still protected under international patent law and so costs more money than you could ever make.
The idea that research (most of which is heavily subsidized) should be directed toward doing the most good and not making the most money should not be so quickly ridiculed. Those of you posting that Universities will no longer do research if they can't make money off it need to ask yourselves what is the difference between a research university and a pharmaceutical company?
And, at this point, whether they're universities or drug companies, the people doing medical research aren't hurting for money. But profit maximization means that people who cannot pay (because they are dieing) do not get treated.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
You should read about people who signed it like John Sulston before making baseless assumptions like that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sulston
mod parent up...
ahhhh lameness filter, why must you plague me so
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
"Asking Universities to provide access to their discoveries would reduce the value of their discoveries on the open market."
No. Because the *access* to the drugs would be in the developing world. The *market* is in the developed world. Africa accounts for less than 1% of pharmaceutical revenues, but 80% of AIDS deaths.
Either your reading level is at the 3rd grade or English is not your first language, otherwise you would have realized I did not make a baseless assumption.
I never made any claim that all of the signers were unqualifed. I am making the claim that many of the signers are guility of the "expert syndrome".
-- Will program for bandwidth
This will never work, because for most people in these countries the immedate concern is starving to death. it will create a huge black market of meds donated to 3rd world countries. this is the reason AIDS is raping africa, because women aren't concerned with dieing of aids when they will die of starvation much sooner, so they prositute/give them selfs away either for food or simply not to be killed then and there. how about we help them get the technology needed to simply feed themselfs, treat the rest once that problem is fixed.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
And how much graft. Don't forget the graft.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Followed by drug development plummeting because the universities quit doing the research studies the drug companies used.
No, Universities would lose Doctors and researchers to private enterprise. The research will be done by someone, private labs will displace the universities as they will be more cost effective under the proposed system, unlike under the current system.
As others have pointed out, and as elected officials demonstrate on a nearly daily basis, nice sentiments sometimes make poor policy due to unintended consequences. This proposal is ripe for the latter.
"Simple economics. You have a choice: make money for yourself to squander, or do something productive with it."
Uh, huh. So when people spend their money on what YOU want it's OK. But when they spend their money on what THEY want it's "squandering"? How very noble of you to think of others.
"What effect on the rest of the world does the death of 30% of Botswana have?"
The plight of the poor and downtrodden is the "Shakespear's spot" of my soul, what about you?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
that 20% of big pharma's R&D budget would come from, if you didn't have big pharma?
Last time I replied (to one of your comments) I misunderstood the intentions of your comments about the OLPC project. I said; "Sometimes, some folks on /. are as clueless as a Washington DC politician." Now I suspect you are just a greedy low-life, mud-sucking, scumbag lobbyist. If you are a lobbyist, you are good and should ask for a raise, but televangelists are still better at their sales-pitch (few will question their lies in public).
...), then you are a poor semiliterate bigot that listens to too damn much dogma from political faux-patriots and religious fake-prophets.
I guess the K-Street slime marketers/spinners have taken to the Internet like political campaigns attempting credibility for their marketing lies, fraud, and illogical irrational claptrap just like any other pickpocket televangelist (all dogma bullshit no reality).
Again; I say, "RealityCheck (RC): Do it they will Benefit, only the afraid bray like jackasses with nay!" Also, Greed is indicative of mentally and emotionally crippled bigots. IOW: What color is better or worse than skin-color? If you reply green, gold, or silver, then you are a real modern bigot. If you picked a symbolic skin-color (white, black, brown,
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
THANKS MUCH to all the students, doctors, researchers, administrators ... involved. You are indeed "Knights of the WoeFolk Continents!"
... at Universities and Hospitals. This gives humanity a ROI for US. This is very good, and an ethics/morals lesson for all modern politicians, corporatist, and televangelists.
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines is fantastic and provides a real path to a better future for humanity.
The Philadelphia Consensus Statement helps the public/citizens reclaim ownership for tax-dollar labs, facilities, payroll
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
OK, I was wrong, last time I was replying to the "BigBuckHunter the Telecom/Cable lobbyist" and not "Salvance the Pharmaceuticals lobbyist", but I think they are both BigBiz industry lobbyist. Most lobbyist are bigots ... in or out of their sheets. However I cannot be sure of "BigBuckHunter the Telecom/Cable lobbyist" and not "Salvance the Pharmaceuticals lobbyist" or their intention may be best.
The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions, and the inactions of bigots, dogmatist, and cowards.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I think that this proposal seriously threatens the quality of research and teaching, because it severs the link between industrial practice and teaching.
On this topic, Paul A. Bartlett said in a NATO workshop on total synthesis:
So, because universities are allowed to do research on patent-protected drugs, it maintains a connection with the industry. The industry will not show any patented drugs, processes or trade secrets to university researchers if they fear "poisoning" of their innovations and patents with this patent-destroying obligation. Sharing of knowledge between the universities and the industry would stop, the teaching would quickly obsolete, and universities would become irrelevant.
Science is a bit special because when you patent something and make a million bucks, you are taking much more than a million bucks from other people - because the restrictions put in place by your patent hurt people by a lot more than that million bucks. It's like SCO - they caused damage to peopls much greater than the profit they made (or stood to make) in licensing fees.
The
manufactured themselves, tested themselves, packaged themselves, marketed themselves, and shipped themselves.
Pharma maintains a quite high level of R&D spending, above the norm for technical companies.
real markets. You gonna have the balls to ban re-importation, and stand up to those who do it?
I didn't think so.
Comparing research to buying you some more luxuries? Yes, that's a good definition of the word.
Because that's what we're talking about here. All these people live above the poverty line, so increasing their salary is all about improving their "quality of life" by buying them more luxuries.
Many of the objections to this post reflect fundamental
misunderstandings and overlook important points.
1. The pharmaceutical industry has no market incentive to address
devastating global health inequities.
- Of 1393 new drugs approved by the FDA from 1975-1999 - only 13 were
for the neglected tropical diseases, which afflict one billion of the
world's population (Trouiller et al. Lancet 2002, World Health
Organization 2005). Most of the rest were for copycat ("me-too") and
lifestyle drugs.
- Universities, on the other hand, have stated commitments to the
public good and respond to different incentives. Profits from drug
licensure are few and far between, and are not for the most part where
new projects are funded from.
2. Around 95% of pharmaceutical industry profits come from developed,
high-income countries. The Philadelphia Consensus Statement seeks to
address the needs of the other 5%, where drug companies aren't making
any money. Opening up access in these poor countries in essence
creates a new market. Reimportation can be prevented by fairly
straightforward packaging guidelines laid out by the WHO that have
worked so far in similar dual-market circumstances.
3. Universities are major contributors to medicines development, and
drug companies are becoming more and more dependent upon university
research for upstream discoveries and innovations as their pipelines
dry up.
-Universities are responsible for >1/2 of basic science research in
the U.S (National Science Foundation 2004)
-15 of the 21 drugs currently with the most therapeutic impact were
derived from federally funded projects at academic centers (Senate
Joint Economic Committee 2000)
4. Arguments such as "Sending them cheap drugs puts more strain on
existing resources, since more people are able to survive in an area
that can't support them," with the suggestion that some peoples' lives
aren't worth saving even when we have the existing means, is
unfortunate. Of course other root problems need to be addressed at
the same time. But we have seen from some early expansions of anti-HIV
medications that infrastructure improvements often follow drug access
because they have new tools and resources to build around.
Right now ten million people die needlessly each year because they do
not have access to existing medicines and vaccines (World Health
Organization 2005). EXISTING medicines. Universities hold upstream
patents on many of these medicines. This Statement is a call to
universities to find ways to leverage this role in drug development to
benefit these forgotten dying.