Do big pharmaceutical companies deserved to get big money for their investment?
Do big biotechnology/pharmaceutical companies deserved to get big money for their investment?
Yes
Side Score: 2
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No
Side Score: 2
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It's not a matter of deserving the money. The system has been setup in a way that requires these companies to charge high prices and invest in patents to recoup the research costs and clinical trial costs. I would argue that it is a spectacular example of the market not solving a problem (health) very well. It gets more complicated when "pirates" create cheaper drugs by violating the patents, providing a means for more people to afford better health, which is of course actively impeded by the legal system (the companies that research the drugs would probably go under if they couldn't artificially reinforce their market with laws). So essentially, this system creates a problem (pharmaceutical companies needing large sums of money to fund research through selling drugs and regulating IP) and impedes healthcare (by making costs much higher than they need to be for treatments and tests), and reinforces itself through legal sanctions and regulations. Side: No
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The pharmaceutical system is not an example of a market failure, but an example of the high cost of developing medicine. If the government took over the research and development of medicines the results would be the same, except we'd be paying for the cures in taxes and the medicine would be artificially priced low. The way the system is set up is that the creators of these drugs have 7 years of exclusivity in which they can recoup their expenses before other pharmaceutical companies can begin selling generics. Unless the cost of producing medicine is reduced then medicine will be expensive...your solution just shifts how we pay for it from at the counter to in our taxes. Side: yes
The pharmaceutical system is not an example of a market failure, but an example of the high cost of developing medicine. If the government took over the research and development of medicines the results would be the same, except we'd be paying for the cures in taxes and the medicine would be artificially priced low. I believe I already stated that medical research costs are high. If the government took over research, it is true that we would all pay the costs through taxes however individually the price for medicine would be lower because the total cost is shared among many. Also, IP laws would probably become irrelevant since a government doesn't make money through patents. Unless the cost of producing medicine is reduced then medicine will be expensive...your solution just shifts how we pay for it from at the counter to in our taxes. I didn't propose a solution. Side: No
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