Bruce,
I probably misspoke, it was my understanding that we pay roughly 35% of the total on drug sales, not purely overall healthcare. I was my understanding that Congress agrees to the fact that we should pay more, as the wealthiest nation in the world, as it's needed to develop new drugs.
I honestly wouldn't disagree with paying slightly more, but I believe if you put big Pharma under a microscope, you'll find that almost all the great new technologies are coming from tiny Biotech's and other research institutions, but big Pharma takes credit as they purchase the rights to the products nearly all the time. I believe that big Pharma spends far more money in protecting their patent products and developing improved versions that extend patent coverage.
I believe if we really wanted to improve healthcare, their ought to be incentives to improving products even before the initial product in a family of products is approved. I'm no patent expert, but if an initial patent provided 15 years of protection, but each improved product that received approval would add ten years, would totally change the dynamics. Imagine if after one year post approval another approved drug from the same family of drugs was approved, the 14 years remaining would instantly become 24 years.
The point is that if patents were additive, the incentive to improve drugs constantly would be there, rather than developing improved products only at roughly the time patents for existing products run out. I believe the big Pharma's would gladly endorse such actions, but in exchange, I believe lower priced drugs should be part of the negotiations.
I really believe that the way to much lower priced drugs is with the FDA actually doing the trials, so cheating is taken out of the equation, but the cost of this occurring is paid out of royalties paid to the FDA from drug sales. Drug makers would need to do Phase 1/2 Trials proving the drug worthy of further investigation, but at that point the FDA would take over. I suspect far less would be required in trials run by the FDA as they would streamline the process and really learn how to best use the drug, rather than continuing with protocols that evidence demonstrated could be improved on.
I should add that approving a drug wouldn't end the tracking of results with a drug, they would continue to be reported. Adverse effects would have to be reported, and no settlements for harm done by a product could be hidden. I believe that legal costs would go down dramatically, and problems with drugs not identified in the approval process would rapidly be established with transparency post approval.
Gary
I probably misspoke, it was my understanding that we pay roughly 35% of the total on drug sales, not purely overall healthcare. I was my understanding that Congress agrees to the fact that we should pay more, as the wealthiest nation in the world, as it's needed to develop new drugs.
I honestly wouldn't disagree with paying slightly more, but I believe if you put big Pharma under a microscope, you'll find that almost all the great new technologies are coming from tiny Biotech's and other research institutions, but big Pharma takes credit as they purchase the rights to the products nearly all the time. I believe that big Pharma spends far more money in protecting their patent products and developing improved versions that extend patent coverage.
I believe if we really wanted to improve healthcare, their ought to be incentives to improving products even before the initial product in a family of products is approved. I'm no patent expert, but if an initial patent provided 15 years of protection, but each improved product that received approval would add ten years, would totally change the dynamics. Imagine if after one year post approval another approved drug from the same family of drugs was approved, the 14 years remaining would instantly become 24 years.
The point is that if patents were additive, the incentive to improve drugs constantly would be there, rather than developing improved products only at roughly the time patents for existing products run out. I believe the big Pharma's would gladly endorse such actions, but in exchange, I believe lower priced drugs should be part of the negotiations.
I really believe that the way to much lower priced drugs is with the FDA actually doing the trials, so cheating is taken out of the equation, but the cost of this occurring is paid out of royalties paid to the FDA from drug sales. Drug makers would need to do Phase 1/2 Trials proving the drug worthy of further investigation, but at that point the FDA would take over. I suspect far less would be required in trials run by the FDA as they would streamline the process and really learn how to best use the drug, rather than continuing with protocols that evidence demonstrated could be improved on.
I should add that approving a drug wouldn't end the tracking of results with a drug, they would continue to be reported. Adverse effects would have to be reported, and no settlements for harm done by a product could be hidden. I believe that legal costs would go down dramatically, and problems with drugs not identified in the approval process would rapidly be established with transparency post approval.
Gary
