House of Paine

bop big pharma

  big pharma faces 
a few open chasms 

university research 
uncle sams now california
labs at various npo/ngo shops
may try a crowd out move 

watch the forces contend

===================================


 
recent news report : 
  

 " some economists say 
that there is no inexorable economic reason
 for drug prices to be as high as they are.
 
"Patents are only  one way 
to get medical innovation, 
 they are not a fact of nature," 
said Michael R. Kremer,
an economics professor at Harvard.

 "It is worth looking for alternatives."

Strong patent protection 
and the prices it props up 
have  allowed substantial
corporate  spending on innovation

 American drug companies 
invested $33 billion in it last year

But this arrangement has a measurable economic cost
 keeping drugs from consumers 
who would buy them 
if they were priced like other competitive commodities 
marginally above production costs

---- well yes and no 
if the system of provision 
is socialized among tax and premium payers 
not specifically drug users
this brakes down-------------

That is not the only inefficiency that patents breed.
 In the insured health market,
 where neither patients 
nor their doctors actually pay for drugs,
 drug companies are subject to all manner
 of perverse incentives.

----------- heres my point missed
in an attempt to scurry into a further area----

 For instance, they can reap more from investing
 in marginal improvements 
over existing therapies 
- and buying ads to persuade patients
 to pay big markups for them 
- than from investing in riskier, 
ground-breaking drugs. 

---- actually this point works best where 
users can effectively lobby the institutions doing 
the paying
to pay for the higher priced brands 
strife without real social reward here----------

The Food and Drug Administration 
has classified only about 20 percent 
of the drugs developed
over the last 10 years 
as qualitative breakthroughs

----------- now thats a hard fact worth gold -------------

 Even though they spend more
on research,
pharmaceutical companies 
are finding fewer new drugs. 
In a report this year, 
the F.D.A. said that 
the way drugs are developed 
"is becoming increasingly challenging,
 inefficient and costly." 
   ----what ? the system is what ?---------



One alternative is to have
the government pay directly for research,
 which some economists say 
could maintain innovation 
While reducing drug prices.


---- enter the npo crowd
and their bureaucrat textpert co-habitators 
lets take commerce out
and briing to full dollar strenght
the elite peer reviewers 
hustle 
lets double their take -------------

 The government already spends
 almost $30 billion a year
 on basic drug research 
at National Institutes of Health laboratories 
and at universities, 
much of which results 
In new drugs. 

------------ very precise eeehhh---------------

It would be relatively straightforward
 to extend this to cover the research
 now done in drug company labs,
 economists say.

----------- ie like arms development is done -------------

There are other alternatives. 
For example, the government could compensate
 drug companies for their inventions 
As an incentive for them 
to keep innovating.


How to determine
how much an innovation is worth?


 One possibility would be 
for the government
 to selectively buy
patents at a premium 
over the price a private bidder 
was willing to offer,
 and then put them 
Into the public domain, 

---------- ie peer types 
would finger
   uncle's buy ups
  for  only real brake thru-ers
and by making  the right  to replicate
free 
clobberany and all "me tooers "down to generic prices --------------

a different approach: 
the government would set up 
a fund to compensate drug companies 
based on how much 
their new drugs 
improve the quality 
of life and how often they were used.
------- more mandarin hugger mugger 
  plus kind of a head bounty 
imagine if one could promote inder this regime ...-----

 
economists say 
In addition to making drugs
 available at lower prices

 these " social market" alternatives
would make it
much less profitable 
for pharmaceutical companies 
to spend millions of dollars 
to develop drugs, 
Like Nexium and Clarinex, 
that are protected by patents
 but offer little improvement 
over similar drugs already on the market. 
  ------------amen amen amen-------------------


The goal is not to spend less 
to develop new drugs,
but to get more therapeutic bang 
for the buck - 
by channeling investment 
to where it matters most - 
as well as to increase
access to the resulting drugs.


---------------------------------------------------------

Through programs 
like Medicare
and agencies 
like the Veterans Administration,
  spending on prescription drugs
 is growing more than 10 percent a year
 and will hit $46 billion in 2004,

 almost one-fourth 
of the nation's total spending
 on these drugs,


 The  implementation
 of   Medicare's
    expanded  drug coverage plan 
in 06 
will add more than $50 billion 
a year to the bill,
on average,
 over the next decade.

 ------------- ie beyond just democracy
  uncle has the "market " whip hand here too --------

Patricia M. Danzon, a professor at the Wharton School
 at the University of Pennsylvania 
whose work is often cited by drug makers,
 said  "small adjustments in the patent system 
would be a more appropriate way to address"
 the investment in "me too" drugs. 


------------ hey this makes it clear 
obviously
if big pharma don't want it
   value empty  profitz would get 
        potentially  squeezed out here  ------------

she says  changing the rules
of the game might itself introduce inefficiency.

-------------- love the scare word without any back up ------------

Another critique, by Joseph A. DiMasi 
of Tufts University and Henry G. Grabowsky of Duke University,
 compared proposals for government rewards 
for research
to the way the old Soviet Union 
gave prizes to its inventors.
 The Soviet "record of innovation was not impressive,"
 they said.

------------- my god the soviet menace too 
now we know how inefficent this could get ----------------------


 Political decisions 
could skew government-financed research,
 misallocating investment. 

--------- lysenko research ---------------------------

Governments short on cash 
may be tempted to underpay 
for private-sector invention,

---------- uncle gyp joint -------------

reducing companies' incentives 
to innovate. 

---------- no incentive to what ?
innovate sure 

but ther opportunity to  denigrate 
that will soar

think of it  

the threat of a  total gubmint strangle hold
  on research 
for all lifes little pillz 
what a ronny good time 
could be had
pulverizing
the yokel brain
on that topic  --------

Auctions  
could be manipulated 
or undermined by corruption

--ie like uncle selling or buying
anything else to and from 
america's private profiteers 
including selling its trillions in  bonds 
and buying its trilions in mortgages 

pilly mae  will work as well as fanny mae ------------

 while bids for patents 
might be low 
because most drugs would be sold
 as cheap generics

------- this is only the case 
if the drugs a "me too-er"  bobo---------- 

compemnsation techniques 
 would require controversial
 decisions about issues like
 the monetary value 
of an extra month of life. 
  -------- something done everywhere every day
 by insurance companies on behalf of workmens comp -----------------

all this 
 could be made voluntary, 

--------- the liberal cop out ---------------------


for instance, letting companies
 keep their drugs 
out of a new system 
but providing enough rewards
to entice them in. 


-------------- n nakedly pathetic pusilanemous
 attempt to level the playing field
take way 
uncle leviathan's
 force bill options 
so what he's got the market clout besides ---------

 the current system is not working well. 
"The pharmaceutical market 
is probably the worst-functioning market that there is," 


 what's the chance it will change? 


Last month, Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio,
 introduced a bill in the House 
to essentially replace drug patents 
with direct government financing of research.

 Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who advised Mr. Kucinich on the idea,
 is skeptical of the bill's prospects.
 "Today all of these proposals are going nowhere," 
he conceded.

 the nation's bill for prescription drugs 
is forecast to reach $520 billion
 by 2013
 more than twice its current level

 At some point, something may crack

 "We're on a path that is clearly not sustainable," 
Mr. Baker said. 


------------ at some pointof course
   the crisis will become acute
and  the current system 
  will  change or die 
but  if you're less then rich or perfect 
don't expect to escape 
someliving household financial  hell 
  right here in river city  till then-----------------