So, I have a great but perhaps hare brained new idea for a drug/treatment. I'm willing to throw my tens of millions (heh) at it.
Instead I have to go ask permission from the government, fight for funds, wait for approval, build massive infrastructure just to prove to the government I'm not wasting their money, and so on?
I've worked on government contracts - defense - most of my career. It is not a model of innovation, low costs, fast delivery, friction-less pivots, and the like. It's a story of incumbents, outdated regulations (waterfall for the win!), inability to get money for great ideas, buckets of money thrown at bad ideas, cronyism, lobbying, you get the idea.
It's trivial, and lazy, to talk about "big pharma" - to paint them as evil. Yes, there is plenty of less than stellar activity, and I had a gf that was in the business. But she also worked for a small start up that would probably be impossible under your model. That world is full of idealistic people that want to do good in the world. And yes, there is also unsavory business practices. But so much good has come from people with a dream. Bethesda is the pharma equivalent of SF in tech. Lots of money flowing, lots of great ideas, lots of moon shots, lots of quick failures, lots of success. It ain't ideal (great ideas, no funding, for example), but I'd suggest your idea needs substantial sketching out to explain how it would successfully replace this sort of activity.
edit: my first job was working for a small company that contracted for NIH. In my short time there I heard so many stories of research being started, then something becomes the hot topic of the day, funding is withdrawn to throw it at this new topic, and the old project is left to die. Not that the new topic was a bad thing to pursue, but if you keep switching focus before getting results you are wasting tons of money. The NIH is regularly criticized for taking only 1 approach to a problem - investigate drug X or treatment Y. It's unbelievably hard to convince Congress that you should spend a ton of money on a research program, but then go and run 10 other programs that assume that that research program will not pan out. No, that's stupid. It's incredibly believable. I recall pulling all nighters, being called on the phone by congressmen or their aides, trying to pull data together for a presentation on the hill to get or continue funding. Ultimately politicians were making research and health decisions. Madness. Everyone I worked with had their hearts in the right place (beware the easy, lazy assumptions!). Individual politicians that I've run across are intelligent and trying to do the right thing as they understand it, and often that understanding is very sophisticated. But the system doesn't have a heart, whether that system is capitalism, start ups, or government.
"I have a great but perhaps hare brained new idea for a drug/treatment. I'm willing to throw my tens of millions (heh) at it."
If your motivation is to make the world a better place, you just publish your idea and if it will indeed be as good as you think it is, things will roll (in the supposed system) by themselves from there on. If your motivation is to get (much) more money than you pour in it when there are lives at stake, then this rises a red flag and should be treated as a public threat.
> Instead I have to go ask permission from the government, fight for funds, wait for approval, build massive infrastructure just to prove to the government I'm not wasting their money, and so on?
As opposed to approaching private companies for permission, funds, approval, adhere to their compliance and management policies, and so on?
> So, I have a great but perhaps hare brained new idea for a drug/treatment. I'm willing to throw my tens of millions (heh) at it.
Your model where the financier is the same person as the scientist is not a common one.
Instead I have to go ask permission from the government, fight for funds, wait for approval, build massive infrastructure just to prove to the government I'm not wasting their money, and so on?
I've worked on government contracts - defense - most of my career. It is not a model of innovation, low costs, fast delivery, friction-less pivots, and the like. It's a story of incumbents, outdated regulations (waterfall for the win!), inability to get money for great ideas, buckets of money thrown at bad ideas, cronyism, lobbying, you get the idea.
It's trivial, and lazy, to talk about "big pharma" - to paint them as evil. Yes, there is plenty of less than stellar activity, and I had a gf that was in the business. But she also worked for a small start up that would probably be impossible under your model. That world is full of idealistic people that want to do good in the world. And yes, there is also unsavory business practices. But so much good has come from people with a dream. Bethesda is the pharma equivalent of SF in tech. Lots of money flowing, lots of great ideas, lots of moon shots, lots of quick failures, lots of success. It ain't ideal (great ideas, no funding, for example), but I'd suggest your idea needs substantial sketching out to explain how it would successfully replace this sort of activity.
edit: my first job was working for a small company that contracted for NIH. In my short time there I heard so many stories of research being started, then something becomes the hot topic of the day, funding is withdrawn to throw it at this new topic, and the old project is left to die. Not that the new topic was a bad thing to pursue, but if you keep switching focus before getting results you are wasting tons of money. The NIH is regularly criticized for taking only 1 approach to a problem - investigate drug X or treatment Y. It's unbelievably hard to convince Congress that you should spend a ton of money on a research program, but then go and run 10 other programs that assume that that research program will not pan out. No, that's stupid. It's incredibly believable. I recall pulling all nighters, being called on the phone by congressmen or their aides, trying to pull data together for a presentation on the hill to get or continue funding. Ultimately politicians were making research and health decisions. Madness. Everyone I worked with had their hearts in the right place (beware the easy, lazy assumptions!). Individual politicians that I've run across are intelligent and trying to do the right thing as they understand it, and often that understanding is very sophisticated. But the system doesn't have a heart, whether that system is capitalism, start ups, or government.