08-26-2016, 11:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-27-2016, 12:00 AM by RolloTheGreat.)
ma
Pharma is a different kind of business for all the reasons I mention, a little like NVIDIA and intel.
They have HUGE investment to bring a drug to market and only a brief window of time to profiteer on it.
The patents run 20 years, but they take about 8 years to get past FDA. So they get 12 years to put the screws to us, but they're doing super costly research and paying off lawsuits during that time as well.
And, since invention, or FDA approval, aren't guaranteed they are basically guessing how long the money from the 12 years raping us has to last. It's a strange business cycle, a lot like tech, but drug out longer and with more regs.
I'm still wildly oversimplifying the situation, and I don't like to pay a lot for medicine either, but I know there is more to it than "These guys have taken over the country and we are their serfs.".
So I try not to totally judge because I understand the upsides as well:
Lifesaving (or improving) medicines that someday become dirt cheap. The HCT I take for my blood pressure is so cheap I buy it without insurance. (think it's about $9 for 90 days)
All the investors (including retirees) who make bank off pharma and need the money.
All the tax dollars the employees pay that helps maintain the country.
The good lifestyle the employees families live, creating more good citizens who will be taxpayers. (statistically speaking my guess is pharma employee kids are way less likely to be burdens on society, success tends to breed success as the parents pass on advantage to their kids)
The families of merchants and service people who sell to the employees with more disposable. (like me paying some landscapers $2500 a few weeks ago to spruce up my gardens, or buying a new truck when mine had 17k miles on it the last two years- and I'm poor compared to a lot of pharma "scum")
People in general don't think about things deeply enough, and never consider how multifaceted and complex the economy is. They just point at stuff like this and hiss,"Robbers!" without even scratching the surface of the situation.
I don't like it that this woman cheated on her degree as I had to earn mine at considerable cost and effort, but I don't begrudge her the salary, and try to remember there are other factors in play I'm not an expert on before I pass judgement.
http://www.forbes.com/2002/05/02/0502patents.html
(08-26-2016, 08:47 PM)SteelCrysis Wrote: The sheer fact that we have to turn to generic medicine is a bad sign. It's a dependency that could be yanked out from under us in the future.
Pharma is a different kind of business for all the reasons I mention, a little like NVIDIA and intel.
They have HUGE investment to bring a drug to market and only a brief window of time to profiteer on it.
The patents run 20 years, but they take about 8 years to get past FDA. So they get 12 years to put the screws to us, but they're doing super costly research and paying off lawsuits during that time as well.
And, since invention, or FDA approval, aren't guaranteed they are basically guessing how long the money from the 12 years raping us has to last. It's a strange business cycle, a lot like tech, but drug out longer and with more regs.
I'm still wildly oversimplifying the situation, and I don't like to pay a lot for medicine either, but I know there is more to it than "These guys have taken over the country and we are their serfs.".
So I try not to totally judge because I understand the upsides as well:
Lifesaving (or improving) medicines that someday become dirt cheap. The HCT I take for my blood pressure is so cheap I buy it without insurance. (think it's about $9 for 90 days)
All the investors (including retirees) who make bank off pharma and need the money.
All the tax dollars the employees pay that helps maintain the country.
The good lifestyle the employees families live, creating more good citizens who will be taxpayers. (statistically speaking my guess is pharma employee kids are way less likely to be burdens on society, success tends to breed success as the parents pass on advantage to their kids)
The families of merchants and service people who sell to the employees with more disposable. (like me paying some landscapers $2500 a few weeks ago to spruce up my gardens, or buying a new truck when mine had 17k miles on it the last two years- and I'm poor compared to a lot of pharma "scum")
People in general don't think about things deeply enough, and never consider how multifaceted and complex the economy is. They just point at stuff like this and hiss,"Robbers!" without even scratching the surface of the situation.
I don't like it that this woman cheated on her degree as I had to earn mine at considerable cost and effort, but I don't begrudge her the salary, and try to remember there are other factors in play I'm not an expert on before I pass judgement.
http://www.forbes.com/2002/05/02/0502patents.html