cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/11304633
Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1,000 appetite suppressant can be made for just $5
No medicines have copyrights, but they do have patents. And, drug patents are kinda necessary if you want money to be spent on developing new drugs.
No one is going to dump a few hundred million into developing a new drug if everyone can manufacture and sell it upon release.
Patents aren’t the issue, though, it’s companies charging out the ass because they can.
Publicly funded research is out of the question then? Why does it have to be private corporations doing the research?
A state doesn’t have this kind of money to burn. If they did it, the money would have to come from somewhere. So either you increase taxes, decrease spending elsewhere, or start a business making a lot of money. Such as, say, selling the newly developed medications at a markup… It’s sad, but I’m not aware of a better way.
That being said, the cost of medications in the US is utterly ridiculous.
Except as highlighted, if the drug didn’t make a return on investment it wouldn’t be made. That can be true for government funded research, it’s not necessary to have a profit margin on top.
Oh, the patent expired? No problem, we’ll just methylate the structure, see that it makes no difference and put it out on the market as a new drug. Or maybe take the active part of a racemic mixture and half the dosage. Same drug double the patent. Semisynthetic insulin is even worse in that regard.
No one is going to dump a few hundred million into developing a new drug if everyone can manufacture and sell it upon release.
You won’t sell it on the market because you have to produce it cheaper or at the same cost as the competition. You don’t have the knowledge to produce the drug efficiently, and you can’t learn that by looking at the end product. In a society without IP, the most important things are the optimised production processes, which will be kept secret. The rest can be copied because it will be more expensive to produce.
