This is totally false, as there are other parties which are interested in developing new drugs: academic researchers, insurance companies, and patients. The drug research is paid for by patients and insured as it stands now, but the FDA/pharma cartel monopolized drug development using patents and the hugely expensive approval process. Now, pharmas are interested in profitable drugs which don't as much cure the diseases but rather allow mainenance of chronic conditions for years and years. Actual effective cures are not a priority. Interests of insurers and patients are quute different: they would love quick, cheap, and effective cures. It's all about incentives.
> This is totally false, as there are other parties which are interested in developing new drugs: academic researchers, insurance companies, and patients.
Why would an insurance company be interested in developing new drugs? Health insurance companies don't lose money if you die.
How do you propose that academic researchers fund their work, all the way through the approval point?
> The drug research is paid for by patients and insured as it stands now, but the FDA/pharma cartel monopolized drug development using patents and the hugely expensive approval process.
Do you think the process is expensive because of the pharma companies, or do you think the pharma companies are the way they are because the process is expensive?
> Now, pharmas are interested in profitable drugs which don't as much cure the diseases but rather allow mainenance of chronic conditions for years and years. Actual effective cures are not a priority.
This is a thing people say, but it's not really true. It'd be great if all you had to do to create more cures was snap your fingers and change the incentive structure. But the fact of the matter is that cures are harder to create. Incremental improvements are easier. So you get more of them. Pharma companies do in fact still cure things when they can, see the recent HepC cure.
Is it? I remember seeing a paper in which they found no empirical evidence that patents actually help in medicine. I'd be interested to know if you have any information on it.
I'm not sure how that could be the case. I'm not familiar with that paper, but I would be curious to see its logic. It's hard to imagine that completely removing the financial incentive to create a thing would engender more of that thing.
