when is it ok to put profits ahead of people's lives?

when you are big pharma.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-01/companies-fight-against-cheap-indian-drugs/4289848

 

when you are the world biggest weapons manufacturer and selller and user

 

So you favor theft of intellectual property?

Killing the profits means the 'pipeline' of new drugs dries up.

If people mattered to their government, the Indian government would pay a one-time payment to the pharmaceutical firms for the rights to make them as generics. If the firms get a big lump sum payment theyu nio longer have to worry about marketing the drug. Inida could spread the cost of the payment to their billion taxpayers.

 

This might be true if pharmaceutical companies didn't (as a group) make higher profits than many other commercial sectors (oil companies and banks are also high profit concerns). Personally I prefer the reduced time of patent protection to the Indian government's proposal but as long as the numbers don't drop the pharmaceutical industry's profits too much there shouldn't be much impact.

As for the Indian taxpayers, three-quarters of them are still really really poor. You're not going to squeeze much more money out of them and a good taxcutter wouldn't want to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor on behalf of healthcare, would he?

 

Why doesn't India just buy the patents before the pharmeceuticals go through the long (7-10 years) and expensive ($1 billion per drug) FDA process and then sell the now-cheap drugs in India? Of course, they have to assume the risks involved.

You take the profit out and nobody will take the risk of developing and getting approval of any new drug.

How much profit constitutes excessive profit?

 

In the end the Indian government can simply pass a law stating that the drugs have no patent protection. Because of that I'm sure some sort of agreement will be reached. The drug companies don't care how many people die, but the Indian government might. And I'm sure they will say that while profits are the main driver for Bayer, the well being of the Indian people is the main driver for the government.

 

so you support big pharma making huge profits when the costs are the lives of children who have contracted HIV from their mothers and cancer patients?

 

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Yes.
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You guys are (*)(*)(*)(*)ing crazy, who have don't use their brains.

India would NEVER destroy copyrights in their country, less they want all their copy rights destroyed by other countries.

 

We are not talking about copyrights! We are talking about patents. And every country decides how long a company gets patent protection. It's 7 years here, but it's not 7 years everywhere. And what does "who have don't use their brains" mean?

 

What about before the drug was developed? Who was responsible for deaths?

You can not expect the scientists and chemists who makes these drugs to work for free, or maybe you think everyone should volunteer their time?

 

"when is it ok to put profits ahead of people's lives?"

Whenever the head Rabbi says it is OK.

 

This thread is basically a litmus test for compassion.

 

I don't agree.

It is about the market and who grasps it.

 

US drug patents are for seventeen years, but getting FDA approval takes seven to ten years and costs around a billion dollars.

A US pharmaceutical could (theoretically) sell its patent for a new drug that has not been FDA approved to the Indian government for a fixed sum and then do with it as they like. The Indians could run it through FDA testing (if they wanted to sell it in the US), or they could do some perfunctory testing and sell it in India (a billion people) or other countries willing to allow it.

Without profits you wind up like GM or Enron or Solyndra, so how much profit is too much profit?

 

Actually, it's about how governments treat patents. They are looking for the government to protect their invention, after all. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but it's also a "free market". It's about seeeking protection from the state for as long as you can.

 

Big Pharma isn't hurting for profits. They make more than enough just from American consumers to be able to afford being philanthropic to poorer nations.

Not everything is a simple matter of supply and demand.

 

GM and Enron's failures didn't have as much to do with profitability as they did with several other things.

 

They want access to the Indian market, so having drugs very few people in India can afford will not work. The price will have to come down. Either that or some Indian company will keep making generic substitutes and the government will look the other way. So big pharma will technically have patent protection, but it will not do any good.

 

If your a republican, the answer is, pretty much whenever you can find a way to get around government regulations, or get those regulations repealed ( DEREGULATE DEREGULATE! DEREGULATE! ), so that its not your problems anymore. Then it becomes the insurance companies problem ( which your likey not providing insurance at present anyways, so even thats not a problem for now )

 

Here is just another disgusting example of a company putting proffits ahead of health.

Reporting from Washington — The Food and Drug Administration took the unusual step Wednesday of inviting specialty pharmacies to make an end run around a company that obtained exclusive rights to a pregnancy drug and promptly raised the price from $20 a dose to $1,500.
The drug, a synthetic form of progesterone trade-named Makena, is recommended as a weekly injection for women at high risk of delivering prematurely, beginning between 16 and 18 weeks' gestation until 36 weeks. The action by K-V Pharmaceutical Co. boosted the total cost of the drug during a pregnancy from about $400 to $30,000, igniting a firestorm of objections.


And im sure the republicans are gonna go crazy about government interfering in private buisness and blah blah. I doubt many of the repub have a problem with this type of medical profitering.

 

Yes indeed. If patents are not ensured, no one will invest and there will be nothing to buy. That is also how the market works.

 

Who judges corporate success by whether they are hurting for profits? Philanthropy only makes sense if it part of a marketing straegy long term.

 

"GM and Enron's failures didn't have as much to do with profitability..."

Taxcutter says:
I disagree. Both companies were just ducky as long as they were making a profit. When they cease being profitable the brown & smelly hit the fan. solyndra, of course, never made a profit.

 

That's only true if your society has no sense of a common good. There are plenty of areas where government intervenes to protect its citizens. In matters of life and death, this kind of intervention makes sense.

I realize it's a slippery slope, but every society has to decide to what extent government should get involved.