WSJ Europe drives out pharma R&D
The world has been coasting on US support for Pharma R&D, if we copy them, who is left?
The next step is government theft of intellectual property and the cessation of R&D.
Circular firing squad on R&D
Published
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Of course the WSJ takes the side of the greedy bastards not able to gouge the sick like they do here. No surprise.
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No, the WSJ takes the side of those who will suffer and die needlessly for lack of new treatments.
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Can you be more specific?
Dying of what?
Do you include those who die needlessly because they cannot afford the drugs here? Dead is dead.
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Dying of the things we die of now that will be cured in the future, if we don’t kill innovation wanting something for nothing.
If you want cheaper drugs, deal with the FDA.
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Governments fund the truly basic research that yields new treatments.
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Basic research does not produce useful drugs absent a billion or so dollars of private development.
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Estimates run from a few hundred million to several billion depending on who is pitching what. One thing that is concerning, however, is the lack of new antibiotics to fight superbugs. No incentive for short term curative drugs, just lifetime ones. Much more profit in chronic diseases.
Saved from cancer but died from a cut on the leg while gardening.
Funny. If we are effectively funding pharmaceutical innovation worldwide via American taxpayers and healthcare premiums, why can’t we get a break on price. My take is that Big Pharma owns us. Or more accurately, our representatives. And the implied threat of dying unless we pay.
Can’t knock money making strategies, though. Life hack? Don’t garden with sharp tools.
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What is happening is that other countries with government health care systems are using their monopoly powers in their own countries to act in a predatory manner toward American customers, seeking and getting a free ride at our expense.
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So if a drug company can’t make money selling to other countries, why do they continue to do so?
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Do you understand the concept of marginal costs?
If you have recovered your R&D costs from the USA. you can sell to other countries for the cost of production plus a small profit for a lot less than if they were paying their share of R&D costs.
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Ok. A drug company says it spends a billion or two (debatable since costs are widely defined), the top drugs, your cancer miracles and COVID, generate 20 billion and up per year. Worldwide.
So unless the US market is the only one, the great profits come from outside the US also.
20:1 is pretty good profitability. Per year, again.
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You think R&D is the only expense?
Manufacture, distribution, education and reinsurance are free?
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RE: “The next step is government theft of intellectual property and the cessation of R&D.”
Don’t forget eugenics.
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So how is eugenics relevant? Just curious.
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Eugenics is a common prediction in science fiction that relates to government control of science. Historical examples also exist, as in the Third Reich.
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“Eugenics is a common prediction in science fiction that relates to government control of science. Historical examples also exist,”….
Virginia, too. And probably some other states.
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“The world has been coasting on US support for Pharma R&D”
And yet it was European scientists who were the ones able to rapidly develop the Covid vaccines. Go figure.
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I was unaware that Massachusetts had officially reaffiliated with Europe.
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“I was unaware that Massachusetts had officially reaffiliated with Europe.”
It was a German company whose research showed the way and produced the first approved mRNA vaccines. But you already knew that and – as always – don’t care for facts that do not fit your twisted narratives.
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Moderna’s labs are in Cambridge MA and Pfizer’s is in St Louis MO. Biontech in Belgium provided manufacturing support.
Which German company are you referring to?
Which
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BioNTech is a GERMAN company headquartered in Mainz GERMANY. They pioneered mRNA research and produced the first approved Covid vaccines.
Your claim that Europeans and others are living off the research funded by for-profit patient-gouging companies is ignorant bullshit.
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So, you give Moderna and Pfizer no credit?
Moderna had a vaccine prototype in less than a week after COVID samples from China were obtained.
They had been producing Veterinary mRNA vaccines for years.
And, of course, Plaxovid is a Pfizer solo product.
Lots of people contributed to mRNA technology, but it is primarily a US technology.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w
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“So, you give Moderna and Pfizer no credit?”
No, but unlike you apparently, I understand that biomedical research is an international effort funded by governments, universities, and for-profit businesses. The United States does not have a monopoly on cutting edge research and within the United States it is universities and government agencies that are closest to the cutting edge. Not the for-profit companies. Therefore, your claim that people will be dying because European health agencies demand reasonable prices is nonsense. IMHO.
Your assertion that Moderna “had been producing Veterinary mRNA vaccines for years.”
is – let’s say – greatly exaggerated. Maybe you are thinking of the DNA vaccines?
Your cite does not support this claim . . . “[mRNA] is primarily a US technology.” But it does show that Universities around the world spent decades developing it before the pharmaceutical companies were willing to fund the research. It also shows that key advances from concept to workable vaccines were European contributions by Transgène, CureVac and BioNTech.
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