Even The Onion Is Mocking Big Pharma's Focus On Patents Over All Else
from the truth-in-humor dept
For many years, we've been pointing out that the big pharmaceutical industry has become so focused, and so reliant, on patents that they've lost sight of the plot. They don't even consider other potential business models or, you know, keeping people healthy. These days, everything is about getting and extending patents, allowing them to charge exorbitant markup rates on drugs around the globe. It's now reached the point that even The Onion is deftly mocking big pharma's patent focus, with a story titled: "New Pfizer Breakthrough Miraculously Extends Lifespan Of Near-Death Patents." Here's a snippet:“At Pfizer, patents always come first. Our primary goal is, and always will be, keeping them alive and healthy for as long as possible. And that’s why we couldn’t be happier to announce this wonderful development.” Hilty added that nothing causes Pfizer officials more distress than seeing a once robust patent expire at a young age, a “terrible tragedy” that allows dozens of generic manufacturers to copy it and offer pharmaceuticals to customers far more cheaply.It's both funny and depressing at the same time, because it's pretty damn accurate. It's disappointing just how far the pharmaceutical industry has gone over the years. Back in 1929, one of the leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, George Merck, declared:
We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been.That's a noble position to take. That's not how the pharmaceutical industry acts today. At all.
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Filed Under: humor, patents, pharmaceuticals
Companies: the onion
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Generalize that just a tiny bit and you have basic capitalism, as described by Adam Smith. It's a shame today's so-called "capitalists" have strayed so far from his principles.
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The main issue with patents (as well as all intellectual monopoly laws - copyright/trademark..etc) is that they are all backed by State force/aggression/violence and do not respect individual property rights.
Ideas are not property. They are not scarce in the economic sense. So for big pharma to use State violence (or threat thereof) to keep others from using the ideas (not property) and their own real physical property, is an immoral act and not one of consensual capitalism.
I prefer consensual relationships and exchange.
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As long as you keep paying whatever they charge for one pill a day for the rest of your life, of course...
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Lawyers, Accountants, and MBAs
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As someone who works in pharma...
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Re: As someone who works in pharma...
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- Bayer Chief Executive Officer Marijn Dekkers
No this isn't a Onion story, it's a real life story of loss of life and greed. You're witnessing the result of patents in it's purest form.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140124/09481025978/big-pharma-ceo-we-develop-drugs-rich-wes terners-not-poor.shtml
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Dyslexia in pharma?
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Re: Dyslexia in pharma?
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Poroffits or should I say growth is at the heart of every business which all of us are part of, education, health and basic living costs so much the the rich gets richer and the poor well we all know where the poor is heading to.
And the rich are a kind of ignorants, getting rid of the middle class will mean no one will be able to afford their products driving them to poverty too, what a happy ending to a dying planet.
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U_nobstructed.....F_iscal.....O_bjectives
Good thing its not because the MAFIA and Drug Cartels and their International Corporations used the half century of tax free world-wide drug proceeds and their control of law through collusion with the members of the federal government to buy into and control the pharmaceutical companies. That's just impossible.
I suspect aliens.
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Another historical perspective
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look what a a simple typo can do!
They used to say and write that "patients are our major priority" but a simple clerical mistake in the form of a typo has doomed us all! Remember kids, thank and tip your clerks/secretaries so they double and triple check your dictations.
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