A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law.
This article focuses on pharmaceuticals, but just imagine what similar restrictions would mean for technology. This is disastrous.
Forget technology. That’s a first world problem. Focus on the drugs company cartels. That’s designed to restrict access to life saving drugs that many countries need. They can not afford the exorbitant prices being charged by the pharma companies. The pharma companies do not have a flat pricing model. The pharma companies do not want to adjust for local markets.
While I accept that pharma companies invest a lot of money in research & development, they are not choir boys and their market is skewed and distorted. There are better and cheaper ways they could work. Even with the costs involved, they are still making huge profits.
If pharma company research overheads are so costly, fix that problem. In fact if you just fixed the patent system that would solve problems in both tech & pharma. Guess what isn’t in TTIP?
If only they invested a little less in rebranding old stuff and ‘bribing’ doctors and insurance companies…
You’re right that the pharmaceutic industry is completely messed up. That doesn’t take away our right to complain about the technology part however. It may not be more important in general, but it’s still important to us in the tech sector.
The research overheads are not that big for most pharma corps. Most of the fundamental research and risk is eaten up by public grants. Some of the margins in that industry are downright scandalous.
And by smaller companies who get bought out to either monetize them or shut the competition down.
Generics companies are hardly angels – in fact increasingly one and the same – for example, Pfizer recently acquired the generics company quoted in the article: Hospira.
The problems, as I see it, are:
1. Cost and length of clinical trials – not only is it the vast majority of R&D costs, but it’s the vast chunk of time that eats into the shorter and shorter exclusivity time once you reach the market.[1]
2. Cost of sales – far too high -though this is changing as the ultimate payers are taking the decisions out of the hands on individual doctors and making more cost efficient and rational decisions.
3. The US. The US health care market is totally broken – a combination of direct sales to patients, a complex insurance system, private hospitals and a ligation conspires to lead to ever increasing costs. To blame it all on pharma is very wrong here – the amount of costly hoop jumping just to get paid in the US is an amazing waste of money.
4. An economic model that creates no incentive for pharma to cure diseases of the poor, or even take to market, known treatments, which have no chance of IP protection ( due to the upfront sunk costs – largely from clinical trials ).
It’s good for the rest of the world in terms of a lot of the pharma profits in the US effectively subsidize the rest of the world. What’s not good is when the US try and export their problems of their own making via TPP etc.
ie the US model health care model is clearly broken, yet there seems some patriotic need not to recognize it, but rather try and push that model on the rest of the world.
I could go on and on – but let’s be clear there are lots of smart, hardworking, scientists trying to find treatments for serious conditions working in pharma and biotech – this has nothing to do with them.
[1] This is, in part, an ever ratcheting up regulatory environment – due to risk aversion on the part of people not actually taking the risk ( regulators on ‘behalf’ of patients ). I also suspect it’s in the interests of big pharma to increase costs here as it create an enormous barrier to entry.
Proof needed ?
Biggest drug by sales is currently humria. 2014 sales 13.9 billion!!!
Lets look at the costs.
In the uk about 9k a year – that’s 26 40 mg doses or ~350 pounds a dose. see page 8 http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/files/advice/adalimumab_Humira_… or
http://publications.nice.org.uk/etanercept-infliximab-and-adalimuma…
Now that’s about 540 -550 dollars each. Now look at US prices….
http://www.goodrx.com/humira
You are looking at 3250 dollars for 2 pens – or 1625 per dose – 3 times the uk price. Now I’m sure you might be able to get it cheaper in the US, but you can’t get it more expensive in the UK as it pretty much all comes through Nice and the NHS.
A lot of you foreigners wanted him, and called those of us who knew what he was about “racists.” I hope you see his true colors, finally.
Well, considering that the other option was Mitt Romney, Obama was clearly the lesser of two evils.
Edited 2015-07-02 04:41 UTC
I think pretty much everyone wanted someone who wasn’t Bush (and Cheney). I had hoped he’d bring some fresh air, given that he taught about constitutional law and had a different background with a different perspective.
The USA was in full crisis with some serious budgetary issues (war spending not being part of the budget and stuff), so I didn’t mind that he couldn’t fix things right away but the longer it went on, the more clear it became that either he’s not in control at all or he’s just another liar. It’s probably both.
But yeah, the fact that there are only two options means you’re pretty much screwed when both choices are terrible. For that matter, I’m really glad we have a multiple-winner system here. It may cause a bit more chaos now and then (like 1.5 year without fully authorized government during crisis), but at least it gives you other options. The competition is also more fierce as parties can lose voters more easily to a ‘neighbouring party’ so false promises on core issues often gets punished hard.
In my opinion Obama is worse than Bush. Not really for his policies, but because he crushed all hope people had in more transparency and honest politics. Perhaps we were simply too naive.
Edited 2015-07-02 08:20 UTC
Which meant he knew exactly how to break it without being punished. It was obvious, but no one would listen. He was too smooth, too ready to say exactly what people wanted to hear, with a background in constitutional law. Duh. I almost respected Bush more not because I agreed with his politics (I hated everything he did) but because you always knew what he was about, and that he didn’t give a damn for anyone but his little kabal. In a way, he was more transparent and far more honest. There was never any doubt what his agenda was.
Except for the WMD thing.
It’s just too easy to lie because there’s only one punishment and that’s impeachment. It’s a relatively extreme measure compared to the second ‘punishment’: making a media fuss while doing nothing.
The EU commission suffers from the same issue by the way. The only thing the EU parliament can do is kick them out, but for that you need a single example that’s outrageous enough that you can justify creating a ‘crisis’ in the media otherwise you end up as the bad guy yourself. It lets them get away with way too much (such as trying to push the same legislation over and over again and keeping the trade negotiations secret contrary to parliament’s will).
Something like official reprimands would be a good start. It’s a lot easier to justify impeaching someone when he’s received a series of strong warnings during his term. Three strikes and you’re out.
Edited 2015-07-02 12:40 UTC
Even that was better than what we’ve got now. It was a lie, but it was at least an obvious one. Bush told outright lies; our current administration tells quarter-truths which sound just plausible enough for people to believe.
So you’re saying a disastrous war on the back of a lie, thousands of Americans dead, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Iraqis dead, the mess that it has made of the middle east and the rise of Isis, the torture in Guantanamo Bay, the 2008 Financial Crisis, the unprecedented tax cuts for the rich, and everything else that was a disaster because of Bush (it’s a long fucking list)…
…Obama is worse? Because of TPP? Even though he has done a lot of good things too?
I struggle to comprehend how short people’s memories are.
Obviously, he wasn’t talking about the TPP specifically. He rather meant everything the Obama administration has (not) done.
It depends on how you look at it. Short term, Bush did a lot worse and caused the destruction of many lives and a few nations. The long term is more ideological though. Bush ruined a lot of things, but it didn’t have the same sense of legitimacy that the Obama administration has added. Under Obama all the illegal wiretapping by the telcos was legalised and retroactively too (remember that?). Then there’s the whole NSA scandal and nothing that matters was done about it. Is Guantanamo closed yet? Rather than fixing it, he clouded everything in vague laws, which set a terrible example for the future.
What happened during Obama’s administration is a lot worse when viewed from a different perspective (i.e. the libertarian vs authoritarian angle, rather than social liberal [left] vs conservative [right] angle).
Edited 2015-07-02 16:49 UTC
You kind of forgot the whole torture thing under Bush… That said, except for the victims and their families (and the entire Middle East), that was small potatoes compared to being disappointed about not getting the desired level of hope and change…
You seem to overlook that more people have health insurance; our health care system is a black mark on America; the ACA was a huge improvement.
He didn’t fight ending gay marriage, the beginning of marijuana legalization, and he didn’t invade Syria (which Romney or McCain would’ve done in a heartbeat).
He also regularized relations with Cuba, and we’re closer to bringing Iran back into the diplomatic world (at least in the developed world where they’ve been excluded).
I never voted for the guy (libertarian), but to compare negatively to either Bush or the alternatives (Romney and McCain) when it comes to creeping authoritarianism is insane.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. Bush let a lot of crimes happen and likely committed a few himself though he’ll never be prosecuted for them. So he was practically immune but at least not legally immune.
Obama’s administration pushed for laws and policies that allow above crimes to happen unpunished instead of prosecuting them. This is a dangerous precedent that makes preventing and fixing those above crimes a lot harder since it gives the signal that the next Bushlike administration can just get away with it.
None of the issues you mention (healthcare, Cuba, gay marriage – and I support him on all of those) undo that. These issues have am impact on specific situations, but measures such as *retroactive* legalizing of government crimes have an impact on laws and other policies. They’re on a different level.
I never said Obama is a bad person, he did a lot of good things, but I also think he set some really dangerous meta-level precedents that Bush didn’t because I honestly think Bush was just incompetent while Obama is a lot smarter.
Sure, Romney, McCain and even Bush (if he was competent enough at least) might have and very likely would have taken exactly the same authoritarian measures. However, fact is, it’s Obama who did it and I won’t excuse his actions because others would have been worse. This is not some ‘winner takes all’ competition.
Edited 2015-07-05 19:00 UTC
Fully agree with your points, nonetheless, Obama government is a lot a let down on relation to all expectations we had all around the world.
Perhaps, we wished too much, the vicious opposition by RP and GOP leaders were underestimated, the democratic forces were too weakened after all crises USA had to face and/or reactionary forces on USA media, when economics are at play, is too strong.
darknexus,
I think part of Bush’s transparency was just a reflection of his incompetence. He was a terrible president and he couldn’t lie about it.
Obama had potential, after all “change” was the slogan, but that turned out to be a great disappointment. He didn’t hold businesses accountable for their own failures, they made off like pirates on the backs of taxpayers. The pro-business trade policies still encourage axing local jobs in favor of offshoring, which people are feeling in full force.
As much as people might want to chastise Obama, lets remember that we really didn’t have good options. Remember the “Corporations are people too” bullshit? This was from the guy who ran against Obama, so in hindsight Obama still was the less corrupt of the two. Realistically though corporations run the whole show for both parties, look at how hard corporations have fought for their right to continue influencing elections and corrupting politics. From war, wall street scandals to NSA constitutional violations, but also less visible things like patent reform and trade deals, people are not a part of the decision making process, only corporations are. Voting doesn’t matter, democracy has failed, the political reform we need can’t be passed because those who would pass it aren’t electable without corporate support.
Edited 2015-07-02 17:25 UTC
So why did so many fall for it?
And what was Obama not transparent about? I mean he’s a politician – perhaps the issue is that people look to these people as idols or role models… President Obama, on issues, isn’t fundamentally different from Senator Obama or Presidential Candidate Senator Obama.
Say what you will – his predecessor lied to start a war and a lot of people in Iraq (civilians and combatants) died. It’s pretty hard to top that when it comes to ways to completely screw over your electorate and innocents around the world.
Regardless, I have been reading this blog for a long time – why does every US policy article have to revert to “Obama sucks?” It is especially ironic because the TPP is largely supported by the GOP…
No, we called the Fox people and people who only get their views from Fox and Limbaugh (Teabaggers) racists, which is a surprisingly accurate description the more you talk to them.
Talk to them in their safe-havens and you’ll soon realize the undercurrent of why they oppose anything Obama. Bill Maher said it best in his bit about Teabaggers using code words to hide their racism.
This kind of remark is indicative of one of two things:
1) A total misunderstanding of the very real currant of xenophobisim/racism present in the opposition to Obama.
2) A very smart ploy to attempt to deflect criticism of the real xenophobic/racist/islamophobic current, by pretending that charge of racism was directed at ALL opposition to Obama, rather than those that it was directly intended for.
3) Completely clueless as to what racism really is. Like when the Klu Klux Klan claims to not be racist but a white pride organisation.
Either way, make no mistake. Its entirely possible that some Obama detractors are racist, AND there are valid criticism against his policies. Finding a valid criticism DOES NOT absolve the idiot birther islamophobes.
To be fair, there were also plenty of idiots who dismissed valid opposition to Obama and his policies as racism, especially in the beginning. There were enough of them to polarize everyone on each side. Didn’t like something? Racist teabagger! Opinion dismissed. Guess what makes someone angry even angrier? Those folks are just as unproductive to progress as the racists and birthers. It didn’t help that the Republican party acted like children either.
So how about we all take the idiots completely out of the equation and not accuse the reasonable people for what the utter morons on their side do? We could actually discuss content then!
Edited 2015-07-02 14:53 UTC
If we did that, we could actually have a functioning, minimalist government. Too bad we can’t convince the idiots that it’s in everyone’s best interest to step aside, since most of them are the ones that want to stick their fingers in everything.
EVERYWHERE.
At the heart of this is what I have been reading about since 2007 and the bankers stole everything.
From people in Greece, all people paying into pension funds all of their life and SOMEHOW there is no many left.
To the kid I just bought a 5 Guys burger for who was in bad straights, obviously dehydrated, and emaciated begging for food and water.
My sister who pays $800 a month in OBAM MY ASS CARE, and got a letter from the insurance compay they won’t pay for her foot surgery after it was already approved.
Crooks, Bankers and Poor EVERYWHERE.
Let’s be very clear: if you put this in a historical context these are awesome times.
Were you around for example during the Second World War ?
Or where you in Europe at the time of the Black Plague ?
Or maybe in for example China when Mao or Genghis Khan did their thing ?
Have a look at an article with some statistics:
“The World Is Not Falling Apart
Never mind the headlines. We^aEURTMve never lived in such peaceful times.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/…
Less than 100.000 death from conflict per year ? is a good year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number_of_conflicts_per_year
You have to remember:
The media is able to give you a direct feed from anywhere in the world with all the bad things that is happening that does not mean there is more bad news.
Also the human brain focuses on bad news. It makes a lot more impact in our mind, your brain is not a rational calculating statistics engine. It classifies bad news as a lot more important (obviously, because it’s important for your survival to play close attention to bad news).
This also means bad news sells better than good news because it does not get the same amount of attention from the brain.
I call these sort of responses argumentum ad ostrich.
I used to call these Rosy Tinted Glasses or It could be worse arguments but, as your remark is way better to capture things to the core, will use your unless, of course, if you already got and exclusive right under some protective law to financially explore it. Well, on this case I’m sure we can reach satisfactory terms of use without resorting to due process.
LOL, sure by all means, consider it released under the GPL ;-).
Do you remember lawsuits wars in smartphones ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_patent_wars