Worth noting as well that J&J have shut down their entire division in communicable diseases because it was so unprofitable for them.
(Source: I work in this industry)
If you can make more money by not doing X, than doing X, it doesnt matter.
Seriously, the argument is that drug companies should only do the most profitable thing? If that's the case, they deserve to have all subsidies removed, and be regulated into oblivion, because they will serve no purpose, but profit.
Just see what happened with the opioid epidemic. If you're only looking at next quarters profits and destroy public trust, while skirting the legal boundaries you'll make bank until you're not.
You're the first one to make any kind of suggestion for what they should do, so I'm not sure why you're jumping to that conclusion
>If that's the case, they deserve to have all subsidies removed, and be regulated into oblivion, because they will serve no purpose, but profit.
The purpose that they serve is to save your life with drugs. If that doesn't mean anything to you and isn't worth any money then I don't think we will find much common ground.
In your analogy, drug companies are the doctors. They want to make money for saving your life. Why would you want to regulate them out of existence?
>Was it 'unprofitable' as in 'losing money', or 'unprofitable' as in 'not worth
the time'?
>If you can make more money by not doing X, than doing X, it doesnt matter.
>The purpose that they serve is to save your life with drugs. If that doesn't mean anything to you and isn't worth any money then I don't think we will find much common ground.
Frankly, most doctors, biochemists, and pharma-chemists I know have little difficulty seeing this. It is about helping people not just making money, and doing otherwise while selling it as the former, is unethical.
I thought I was clear, but I will try again. The financial calculus is the same between "losing money" and "not worth it". It doesnt matter if the J&J division of communicable disease is running a positive or negative balance if J&J (or its owners) can more doing something entirely different. The question is do we want to be losing money on this. That is not to say they can't or shouldnt keep doing it as a public service or out of altruism, but the question is the same.
>My point was that if their purpose is only to do the things that make marginally more money.
I dont think that is a valid assumption to make about the industry. 99.9% of the time, the way to make more money is to make a product that saves or cures more people. If your product saves fewer people, People would by the old thing instead of the new thing for 2x the price.
Now, everyone is free to say they dont like the price, which is fair. However, the price is high because rich American customers dont care about the price. IF they did, they could always buy the cheap old thing.
It is like someone who is angry at the butcher for the price of filet minion, but keeps paying ever higher prices, and refuses to buy the tri-tip.
Europeans prices are half the US simply because they stop buying filet minion and get tri-tip when the price gets too high. US prices are twice that because we pay it!
It is crazy to blame the butcher for raising the price when you willingly keep throwing more money at ever higher prices!
No industry anywhere in the world expects the seller to keep prices low when customers keep throwing money at them.
The fundamental problem with US healthcare costs is that not one party in the system is willing to control spending. Nobody will say no to a treatment 1% better for 200% the cost.
Patients will pay anything for the latest drug because they want it, and the costs get spread over everyone's premium. Insurance is happy to see medical costs balloon because their profit is capped as a % of healthcare costs. manufacturers are happy to see costs go up, because that's what they are selling.
This is a naive statement.
Viagra made a ton of money, while only benefitting a slice of a slice of humanity. It doesn't save lives, it helps some people get erections.
Compare and contrast to real, widespread diseases that affect millions, and are risk factors for billions, but require public research dollars because the pharmaceutical industry doesn't see enough profit compared to a new erectile dysfunction or baldness treatment.
That's not an industry working to the public's benefit. That's an industry working to old white men's benefit. It's helping itself and to hell with anyone else.
With that said, Viagra was initially developed for high blood pressure and chest pain. Testing didn’t pan out but it worked wonders for erections so it was rebranded. It is also used in pulmonary hypertension.