I don't think any existing moral system has profit maximization as its highest good. On a "do unto others" scale, this gets a "five guillotines" rating. It's such an egregious flaunting of market...
I don't think any existing moral system has profit maximization as its highest good. On a "do unto others" scale, this gets a "five guillotines" rating. It's such an egregious flaunting of market power that it begs for a more rational capitalist to give the drug away just to save face for the pharmaceutical industry.
We can argue about capitalism versus socialism all day long, but this is an extreme case for regulation of oligopoly/monopoly markets, whichever economic system you endorse.
[The actual cost to synthesize simple, off-patent drugs like nitrofurantoin or pyrimethamine (Martin Shkreli's Daraprim) is so low that my Socialist inclinations tell me this is an excellent case for publicly-owned manufacture of critical medicines.]
The formula is in the public domain, but FDA approvals are still needed on generics formulations to prove that they have equivalent effectiveness to the brand-name drugs for which patents...
The formula is in the public domain, but FDA approvals are still needed on generics formulations to prove that they have equivalent effectiveness to the brand-name drugs for which patents originally applied.
Pharmaceutical regulation isn't a particular domain of public health knowledge for me, but it's my understanding that the costs of these approvals can be burdensome, and navigating the process does require special expertise which may put the process out of reach of tiny independent manufacturers.
There are good public safety reasons for the regulation, but in recent years, the FDA has been as revenue-starved as many other agencies in the U.S. Federal bureaucracy, and has placed more of the cost burden on applicants.
I don't think any existing moral system has profit maximization as its highest good. On a "do unto others" scale, this gets a "five guillotines" rating. It's such an egregious flaunting of market power that it begs for a more rational capitalist to give the drug away just to save face for the pharmaceutical industry.
We can argue about capitalism versus socialism all day long, but this is an extreme case for regulation of oligopoly/monopoly markets, whichever economic system you endorse.
[The actual cost to synthesize simple, off-patent drugs like nitrofurantoin or pyrimethamine (Martin Shkreli's Daraprim) is so low that my Socialist inclinations tell me this is an excellent case for publicly-owned manufacture of critical medicines.]
If the patent is expired, then why isn't the formula in the public domain so that anybody can manufacture it? Do patents not work like copyrights?
The formula is in the public domain, but FDA approvals are still needed on generics formulations to prove that they have equivalent effectiveness to the brand-name drugs for which patents originally applied.
Pharmaceutical regulation isn't a particular domain of public health knowledge for me, but it's my understanding that the costs of these approvals can be burdensome, and navigating the process does require special expertise which may put the process out of reach of tiny independent manufacturers.
There are good public safety reasons for the regulation, but in recent years, the FDA has been as revenue-starved as many other agencies in the U.S. Federal bureaucracy, and has placed more of the cost burden on applicants.