The flip side of patent protection is this is what encourages drug companies to spend the multiple years of drug research and drug approval to develop new antibiotics.
I certainly agree that the patent system is non-optimal and should overhauled/replaced, but we also have to figure out a better way of funding drug development as part of that project. Maybe more government funding of basic drug research? Perhaps, but then it becomes a highly political issues (i.e., something the Republican Party would fight tooth and nail against).
>The flip side of patent protection is this is what encourages drug companies
to spend the multiple years of drug research and drug approval to develop new
antibiotics.
That's patently wrong (pun intended).
At least in Europe, a major part of the income of the pharma concerns come
from the government[1] - and as such indirectly the public. Furthermore, most
of that money doesn't even go to research. but into marketing and other things
which have nada to do with research. Pharma concerns generally spent only about
15% of their budget on actual research[2].
Furthermore, this system encourages the development of treatments instead of
cures. It's a lot more profitable to bind a patient to a daily mix of pills
than it is to give them a shot that cures their disease. Or develop other
completely unnecessary shit, like all these "Anti-Aging" products.
This system is all sorts of fucked up, and it's ignorant to claim that it's the
only alternative. I'll make the bold claim that without medical patents, we'd
have already gotten rid of AIDS and severely reduced the mortality of cancer.
I did say that there were other possibilities, including government funding of research. However, it is a strong article of faith amongst the American right-wing politicians that the marketplace is always more efficient at directing money to be funded at the "right" research approaches than letting the government try to do that.
They would point at how (in-)efficiently the Chinese government directed funding of building and roads in 2nd-tier cities where entire city blocks of apartment buildings are empty as an example of that.
While I don't agree with that entirely --- there are more definitions of "right" than just what makes the most $$$: witness the vast amount of money being poured into statin research, which I'm not convinced is the best place to devote time, attention and cash if your valuation function was based on improving the overall health of the country or or of the world --- it is fair to say that it's a bit too easy to just say, "oh, we'll just let government fund the pharma development". This begs the question of whether or not you trust politicians to decide how much money to devote towards R&D, and how the money should be spent. Fundamentally, it's a lot more complicated than I suspect the Pirate Party has acknowledged.
They already discussed it in the article. Short term they'll may increase antibiotic production but long term they'll increase the mortality and costs of hospital care.
I think a generous prize system for new medicines could be incentive enough. This could also eliminate the need to stop free dissemination of manufacturing knowledge, meaning people the world over could get the medicine they need for free.
I certainly agree that the patent system is non-optimal and should overhauled/replaced, but we also have to figure out a better way of funding drug development as part of that project. Maybe more government funding of basic drug research? Perhaps, but then it becomes a highly political issues (i.e., something the Republican Party would fight tooth and nail against).