@Dangerous_beans The drug wouldn’t exist at all if Gilead hadn’t had an incentive to spend money on R&D, clinical trials, and the approvals process, and make at least some profit out the back end. And that would leave all of us worse off.
So where would you propose that money come from, or what alternative incentive structure are you proposing to ensure drug discovery continues to happen?
@Infoseepage It's ok. Thanks to modern software's complete lack of security all the production details will already have been stolen and are now being processed by a competitor. Even if gilead somehow manages to make it illegal to sell competing vaccines (good luck with that), medical tourism is huge now and a quick trip to BKK will soon get you your AIDS vax.
@valhalla@Dangerous_beans Yeah that’s a good model imho, in part because it allows for better cross-subsidisation of both failed and unprofitable drugs, based on drugs that are profitable. One issue is that it also tends to result in more unmet need in orphaned indications, since on a cost/benefit basis it isn’t rational to “waste” finite R&D on areas that have little need (which leaves folks with those conditions SOL). The TGA in Australia can be quite ruthless about this, for example.
And yes I believe OP was posting in the context of the US, where this kind of “socialist” model would be very difficult to deploy (which doesn’t make it any less of a good idea, ofc).
We should also not forget that practically all ground research in pharmaceuticals is done at public universities and institutions.
Companies should get paid for testing and producing, possibly have a grace period of, say, 5 years of monopoly gains, but the knowledge needs to be public.
Medical progress is not helped by patents and monopolies, but hindered.
@Infoseepage@Dangerous_beans Thanks! Including cost is the only way to actually understand what’s really going on, and mentioning Gilead’s profit is useful context too.