What second or third order effects might happen? I’m not saying the status quo is the only reasonable equilibrium, but if you take the profit motive out of something (anything), I worry that you’ll get fewer of society’s resources directed towards that area. Maybe that’s money, attention of the brightest/most creative thinkers, willingness to do the outright drudgery required to invent, perceived status of the field, etc.
If you want a lot of drug research, you probably want to ensure that successful drug research is lucrative. (Maybe less than today, maybe making unsuccessful research or negative reproduction more lucrative than today.)
The scientists doing the work could be getting paid the exact same by the government as opposed to investors looking to make 1000x returns.
In fact, I’m pretty sure the taxpayers are subsidizing investors with all the free research and knowledge they get from taxpayer funded higher educational facilities.
I wrote looking to make 1000x returns, not getting 1000x returns. If I was investing into pharma R&D, I would also be looking for commensurate returns and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Developing medicines is a high risk venture. But the rewards are extremely high also, so maybe it merits the resources of all of society. This is ignoring that US taxpayers already pay for a significant portion of the R&D via universities.
Your original argument basically applies to everything, why shouldn’t the government just pay everyone’s salary since we’ve all benefited from some subsidy. 80-90% of drugs are discover by private companies doing research. Also, i think you would find that those scientists that you claim could just be paid by the government would leave those jobs when they inevitably have an idea that their risk adverse bureaucratic boss doesn’t want to pursue. Then they will find some rich fiends to invest and start companies themselves and we will be back to where we are now :). Unless you force everyone to work for the state... Anyway, I don’t feel like getting into the capitalism vs socialism but if you do a bit of research I’m sure you can discover why the current model works.
If you want a lot of drug research, you probably want to ensure that successful drug research is lucrative. (Maybe less than today, maybe making unsuccessful research or negative reproduction more lucrative than today.)