We Made New Cancer Drug For Rich White People Not (Ick) Poor Indian People, Pharma Giant CEO Actuall

Grimpachi
Reading the article this is literaly the first thing that came to mind.

Our goverment(US) spends billions if not trillions each year on developing weapons to kill through grants. DARPA BUDGET

If we spent half of that on finding cures for disease and developing efficient clean energy basically things that would improve life the result would not only be better lives for our own countrymen, but the world would become less hostile as well.

There have been studies that show better standards of life with populations result in less conflicts.


Then I read the posts on the thread.


Look I do understand that companies need to see a return on their investments and I agree with them at least in principle. That is the way the system is designed.

That tells me the system is flawed if not broken.

Most people do not know our government forces medical companies to develop and make vaccines. Vaccines are not a money maker for those companies I have even seen reports where they operate at a loss, but do so as a social contract with the government. In return the government has allowed them to operate as they do where medicines such as the one in question are set up to make them huge profits for an allotted time through patent protection.

It is a bad system IMO. I would really like to see what they budget towards developing new medications and compare it to what the government spends on developing weapon systems. Only then would I be certain on the issue.

Bad system - agreed. I would clarify on 'the social contract' -- it would be with 'we the people' not 'the government'.

reply to post by FyreByrd


Cures for illnesses that are common in all countries of the earth should be non-profit. The betterment of mankind is more valuable that any profit that may be made.

The fact that this is even a news story just goes to show how screwed up the priorities of the human race are. Anybody who stands for profit over people is guilty of being part of the problem, if not the actual problem.

I am all for making a profit off of intellectual property, but if it is something the world desperately needs, like a cancer treatment, then it is no longer owned by the company that happened upon a certain chemical combination, it is owned by those that need it, whether brown, black, white or purple.

Anybody who can stand with a clear conscious and try to justify keeping needing people from obtaining something that will help them with a disease that is not fault of their own, deserves whatever society wants to throw at them. This kind of behavior is not acceptable and needs to be stopped now.

Its as if the world is stricken of water except for a single source, and those that control the source feel they get the decide who gets the water. Regardless of the source, every human is entitled to that which will allow them life. If you withhold that which will allow a person to live, causing them to cease to live, then you are guilty of murder plain and simple.

What if i lived in a desert and didnt have access to water, but i spent thousands of dollars on a method of turning sand in to water allowing me to unlimited amounts of water using only materials that i could obtain cheaply. I do all the work, and figure out how to make it happen easily and cheaply, but i spent thousands upon thousands of dollars to figure out the exact process. now that i know the process i can replicate it for hardly any cost. Out of nowhere a guy shows up at my door, dying from thirst. This water i have created is part of my intellectual property. The process to make this cost me thousands of thousands of dollars to create. If i was to withhold the water from the guy dying of thirst for these reasons, wouldnt that make me a monster? If i was allowed to let this man die, wouldnt that make my intellectual proper worth more than a man's life? Is the formula for something really worth more than a human life?

Nothing is worth more than a human life, and the sooner society realizes this the sooner we can move forward and out of this selfish greedy stage of evolution we are currently in.

I am all for a free market, but this is getting out of control. When things get this out of control something big usually happens to restore balance. I just hope that the "something big" that will eventually happen doesn't cost more than we have.

DC

xDeadcowx
reply to post by FyreByrd

 

Cures for illnesses that are common in all countries of the earth should be non-profit. The betterment of mankind is more valuable that any profit that may be made.

Any non-profit group is welcome to develop any cure they want, no one is stopping them.

xDeadcowx

What if i lived in a desert and didnt have access to water, but i spent thousands of dollars on a method of turning sand in to water allowing me to unlimited amounts of water using only materials that i could obtain cheaply. I do all the work, and figure out how to make it happen easily and cheaply, but i spent thousands upon thousands of dollars to figure out the exact process. now that i know the process i can replicate it for hardly any cost. Out of nowhere a guy shows up at my door, dying from thirst. This water i have created is part of my intellectual property. The process to make this cost me thousands of thousands of dollars to create. If i was to withhold the water from the guy dying of thirst for these reasons, wouldnt that make me a monster? If i was allowed to let this man die, wouldnt that make my intellectual proper worth more than a man's life? Is the formula for something really worth more than a human life?

Now what if you spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and the man you gave the water to had a bad reaction and he sued you for another $50 million. Then Africa said we don't care you spent your money, we're taking your technology and not paying you a penny for it. Then the guy down the street took your technology and was selling the water at the same price you did, without paying any of the cost.

You think the next guy wanting to create something is going to waste his money doing it?

OccamsRazor04
You think the next guy wanting to create something is going to waste his money doing it?

Hm...probably not if he is a shallow minded egoistical individual geared towards profit like you seem to be.

If we ever hope to evolve beyond apes with guns, we will need to sway away from such mentality.

theMediator

OccamsRazor04
You think the next guy wanting to create something is going to waste his money doing it?

Hm...probably not if he is a shallow minded egoistical individual geared towards profit like you seem to be.

If we ever hope to evolve beyond apes with guns, we will need to sway away from such mentality.

Great, so I expect you will be selling all your Earthly possessions and donating them to a non-profit, and you will quit your job and spend your time doing all charity work. Since expecting to be paid for your work is egotistical and selfish.

Oh, and you don't know me, so you really shouldn't act like you do, since it makes you look kind of like a complete fool.

OccamsRazor04
You think the next guy wanting to create something is going to waste his money doing it?

Wow that sounds bad but let's look at some facts:
According to the info presented the R&D for Nexavar was $275 million and Bayer recieved Orphan Drug designation which means that the US taxpayer footed up to 50% of that.

Onyx (co-developer) stated that sales for 2006 totaled $164 million and by 2012 sales were over $1 Billion.

What Natco offers:

Natco Pharma (the Indian company) offers the medication at $177 a month and claims to have a profit margin of around 25%. That is after paying Bayer a 6% royalty.

By the way, there were 700,000 cases of liver cancer diagnosed in 2006. If they had made the drug available at $200/month ($2,400/year) and half of those patients had bought it they would have made almost $50 million (in profit) after recovering their R&D costs. Every year after that would have been gravy.

Sounds a little different than your "what if".

reply to post by daskakik


No it's not. I don't even have to research anything because your post is meaningless. People here are saying the drug should be taken from Bayer and given away. So what if Bayer spent $275 million and then the drug was TAKEN as members here are suggesting it should be. What if that happened? Who is going to spend another $275 million on the next one if it will simply be taken?

That's my point. Bayer took all the risk, they should be making money. It should not be taken away from them and given away.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

I don't care what the members here said. I posted the facts.

There is nothing there to show that Bayer is a victim. They made money and are still going to make money, even from the sales of the generic drug so, there is no reason why they wouldn't do it again.

daskakik
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

I don't care what the members here said. I posted the facts.

There is nothing there to show that Bayer is a victim. They made money and are still going to make money, even from the sales of the generic drug so, there is no reason why they wouldn't do it again.

edit on 2-2-2014 by daskakik because: (no reason given)

Sorry, you can't tell someone they made enough money so now you are going to steal their product. It's theft. It's either theirs or it isn't. If it is, this is theft. If it isn't, then every country should just steal their products. Or is it just ok for India to do this, and no one else can? Why do some countries get to steal and some don't?

ETA: What percent of new drugs fail and never make it to market, meaning Bayer paid millions/hundreds of millions without seeing a single penny in sales?

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

Move the goal posts where ever you like. The fact is that they have made back more than they put in and will continue to profit even from the sales of the generics so, your claim that R&D will stop because of rulings like the one handed down in India is wrong.

theMediator

OccamsRazor04
You think the next guy wanting to create something is going to waste his money doing it?

Hm...probably not if he is a shallow minded egoistical individual geared towards profit like you seem to be.

If we ever hope to evolve beyond apes with guns, we will need to sway away from such mentality.

Lets play this through logically. Company develops life saving drug, cost 10 million in research. People mass produce it and refuse to pay them. Company goes out of business, bankrupt. They have no more money to do research with.

No more new life saving drugs from that company. Ever.

No-one will fund research now as it's a big black hole that eats money and you won't get it back. Can't pay researchers (no cash) so one invests in the research business. There's a few small charities researching, but they don't have 1% of the funding.

Result: NO NEW DRUGS

Result of 'no new drugs' : people start dying from disease resistant strains in their millions. New illnesses burn like wildfire.

Patent payments on drugs are necessary. They are also temporary.

daskakik
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

Move the goal posts where ever you like. The fact is that they have made back more than they put in and will continue to profit even from the sales of the generics so, your claim that R&D will stop because of rulings like the one handed down in India is wrong.

Proof?

daskakik
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

Move the goal posts where ever you like. The fact is that they have made back more than they put in and will continue to profit even from the sales of the generics so, your claim that R&D will stop because of rulings like the one handed down in India is wrong.

I am not moving goal posts, I responded to a specific call to steal all drugs for cancer saying that would create a situation where no drugs were created.

You reply it's not true because they sold Nexavar and made money. That has literally nothing to do with my post. Zero.

I replied back with something on topic to your post, which is that over 90% of all experimental drugs dont make it to market. So simply taking the cost of the ones that do is completely disingenuous.

Now, either countries can steal new drugs or they can not. If they can, then no companies will make new drugs as they will simply be stolen. If they can't, how are you ok with India doing just that?

If Papa Johns is making lots of money can I go and take their pizzas for 97% off?

reply to post by Antigod

Already posted above.

Antigod

theMediator

OccamsRazor04
You think the next guy wanting to create something is going to waste his money doing it?

Hm...probably not if he is a shallow minded egoistical individual geared towards profit like you seem to be.

If we ever hope to evolve beyond apes with guns, we will need to sway away from such mentality.

Lets play this through logically. Company develops life saving drug, cost 10 million in research. People mass produce it and refuse to pay them. Company goes out of business, bankrupt. They have no more money to do research with.

No more new life saving drugs from that company. Ever.

No-one will fund research now as it's a big black hole that eats money and you won't get it back. Can't pay researchers (no cash) so one invests in the research business. There's a few small charities researching, but they don't have 1% of the funding.

Result: NO NEW DRUGS

Result of 'no new drugs' : people start dying from disease resistant strains in their millions. New illnesses burn like wildfire.

Patent payments on drugs are necessary. They are also temporary.

Basically his reply is that some people aren't stealing it, and so it's ok for India to do so. That's what his position boils down to. He also thinks when talking about costs, adding in the cost of all the FAILED drugs is moving the goal post and has nothing to do with how much Nexavar should cost. So apparently Bayer should spend $20 billion on failed drugs and then only make $1 billion on the drug that works. Somehow he thinks that's what makes sense.

reply to post by charles1952


That's rubbish we as society give billions in aid through government and out of our own pockets through charities.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

Sorry, you can't tell someone they made enough money so now you are going to steal their product. It's theft. It's either theirs or it isn't. If it is, this is theft. If it isn't, then every country should just steal their products. Or is it just ok for India to do this, and no one else can? Why do some countries get to steal and some don't?

Your first points are accurate; you can't tell someone they've made enough profit or that it isn't their product any more.

However, there's a wider ethical question that isn't limited to simple property rights. I remember the Heinz Dilemma (ethics of stealing medicine) from university. It describes levels of moral development using the idea of a man seeking medicine to keep his wife alive. He can't afford the medicine and eventually steals it.

Morally, the Indians feels justified in producing medicines that save members of their population. Morally, they'd feel it was wrong to accept suffering and/or death if the obstacle was the profit-margin of a corporate entity.

The reasons why these contexts are described as 'dilemmas' is because they aren't as easy to dictate as you are trying to claim. 'Big Pharma' would have no incentive to produce life-saving medicines if they couldn't reap huge profits. Likewise you wouldn't enjoy watching a loved one suffer or die because you were born in a deprived area and couldn't afford (or access) the medicines.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

Please don't put words in my mouth and India isn't stealing it.

OccamsRazor04
I am not moving goal posts, I responded to a specific call to steal all drugs for cancer saying that would create a situation where no drugs were created.

Actually you replied to a scenario where a person makes a choice to give or withhold something (water) that is part of their intellectual property. Not about stealing.

If Papa Johns is making lots of money can I go and take their pizzas for 97% off?

You can make and sell pizzas just like theirs and sell them for 97% less. You just can't call them Papa John's.