Good for the Indian company to make huge profits off of selling generic drugs to new markets and using those profits to fund research for drugs to help common conditions. Now for Econ 101: When other people see how much they are making, they will start their own generics, therefore driving the price down. This will eventually lead to a profit-less industry with no left over money to research even common diseases, much less rare ones.

You must be talking about Econ 101 from a state university, since that description is falsified by just about every industry out there. Industries don’t become “profit-less” over time, unless they are superseded by something better or the government steps in. There are fewer profits to be made as more people flock to the industry trying to make a buck. . .but this has the net effect of increasing innovation and productivity, not decreasing it. (I think they admit even that in state schools.)

Your implicit argument that artificial scarcity is needed in the drug industry so that people will do what is “best” (and what they otherwise wouldn’t do) is strangely familiar. . .

http://jim.com/econ/chap07p1.html

Also, you wrote this in response to someone else’s argument:

“Besides, forbidding 15 million people in Africa who are dying of AIDS from making their own generics in the name of patent monopolies is genocidal and unforgivable.”

Sounds like a utilitarian arguement to me.

No, sounds like a moral argument to me. Were you equating ‘using a number in the argument’ with ‘utilitarianism’?

Sounds like a utilitarian arguement to me.

“Not to mention, millions of seniors in the US who are exposed to “cures” with harsh chemical side effects that have no logical reason to be there accept for the patentability of it.”

If you believe in the market, then if people didn’t like the side effects, or had heard of bad side effects, they would take an alternative. Oh, wait, the reason that they take those medicines is because they actually work and there is nothing else (patented or not) that works as well. Therefore if there is nothing else like it, there is no need to add any patentability to it.

Good for the Indian company to make huge profits off of selling generic drugs to new markets and using those profits to fund research for drugs to help common conditions. Now for Econ 101: When other people see how much they are making, they will start their own generics, therefore driving the price down. This will eventually lead to a profit-less industry with no left over money to research even common diseases, much less rare ones.

We all agree that the FDA should be done away with, but claiming that all of the costs of research come from the FDA is extremely naive. There is no way that selling a few drugs before the generic comes out will cover all of the overhead that is unavoidable with research.

http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/value2/guests/view-thread.asp?delay=90&id=1621&more=dtrue

Here is a write up by a value investor who has made 29% returns for 7 years by investing in companies with great fundementals. One of those companies is an Indian pharmecuetical company that has an annual R&D budget of something like 30 million dollars. Yet! They have more drugs in the pipeline than american pharmecuetical companies, their labs are up to FDA standards (for what thats worth, and thier drugs are in american markets. They are also traded at the NYSE.

The average markup on every drug is something absurd (when I find the figure I will post it). This company is a “great” company just becaus they are allowed to create drugs in a less regulated market. They produce many times the drugs of Big Pharma here in the U.S. and their drugs are of comprable quality if not greater.

Remove the regulations, patent protections, and everything else and there will be more drugs to serve more needs than ever before and at incredibly low prices.

God bless! Ron Paul 2008!

BTW, this company seems to merit a fuller description and post in Mises, right?

Besides, forbidding 15 million people in Africa who are dying of AIDS from making their own generics in the name of patent monopolies is genocidal and unforgivable. Not to mention, millions of seniors in the US who are exposed to “cures” with harsh chemical side effects that have no logical reason to be there accept for the patentability of it. Those mega pharma lawsuits you hear about every few years? There’s a reason for that. “Nice and principled” indeed.

the development of new drugs costs on average $ 200,000,000. Without a patent, anybody is able to copy and sell the drug without the costs of investment. Who is willing to invest hundred millions of dollars for developing a new drug without a chance for profits? And in consequence, how many people are going to die because medical treatments are lacking for certain diseases?