Random Thoughts....

It's only ironic if he knows it. I doubt he's smart enough.

I use it because it is cool, fashionable and contemporary. I am renowned for being cool, fashionable and contemporary after all, it would be logical I'd use words like swag... Brah.
 
I just wait for these boffins in medical research to get off their asses and develop a cancer vaccine. I'll be back chain-smoking the second after getting my shot.
Finding cures for things are not in the interests of the drug companies - this is where Capitalism is not so clever.

So you buy a shot/pill you take it, you are cured - how do drug companies make money out of that? Same goes for terrible diseases that only a few people suffer from.

What is in their interests is something you take to mitigate the symptoms, a pill or shot every day but for a widespread malady - my God how the money rolls in. ...

Oh it helps if your government bans imports and makes you buy the stuff at ridiculously high prices - can anyone think of a country that does that?
 
Finding cures for things are not in the interests of the drug companies - this is where Capitalism is not so clever.

So you buy a shot/pill you take it, you are cured - how do drug companies make money out of that? Same goes for terrible diseases that only a few people suffer from.

What is in their interests is something you take to mitigate the symptoms, a pill or shot every day but for a widespread malady - my God how the money rolls in. ...

Oh it helps if your government bans imports and makes you buy the stuff at ridiculously high prices - can anyone think of a country that does that?


As a scientist in academia, I have to emphatically say BULLSHIT. If I find a cure for something, no matter how rare the disease, you're damn well sure I'm going to do everything I can to get it out there. And you know what? A pharmaceutical company will put it out there, because they haven't invested any money into researching a cure for that disease. All they have to do is reap the profits from selling it. You want to push capitalist pharma back into its place? Stop supporting dipshit politicians who cut funding for the sciences, and support someone who's not afraid to fund education and research.
 
As a scientist in academia, I have to emphatically say BULLSHIT. If I find a cure for something, no matter how rare the disease, you're damn well sure I'm going to do everything I can to get it out there. And you know what? A pharmaceutical company will put it out there, because they haven't invested any money into researching a cure for that disease. All they have to do is reap the profits from selling it. You want to push capitalist pharma back into its place? Stop supporting dipshit politicians who cut funding for the sciences, and support someone who's not afraid to fund education and research.
Oh yea:

Who is going to pay your salary to discover the drugs? If you work for a drug company they will only put you on projects that would make them money, if you find the drug that they are looking for, you will not get the opportunity to work on projects with no hope of a profit anyway.

Even IF say the government pay for you to make the discovery which drug company is going to pass all the FDA stuff, and market the drug to make money unless there is a large market?

You personally do not have the money, nor access to the money to do all the testing and pass the FDA scrutiny, make, market, sell the drug, the costs involved are huge, actually doing the work in discovering the drug is small potatoes.

And if the drug was discovered by you when working for someone else as an employee it is their property to do with as they see fit, not yours. And if they can not see a profit then it will not be sent to market even if you do turn up something unexpected.

Now you see why it is in these circumstances that perhaps a bit of 'socialism' is a good thing - NB I am not generally in favour of socialism.
 
Last edited:
As I said, I am a scientist in academia. Don't tell me how this shit works. It's my fucking job.

Here, in general, you apply for a research grant from the National Institutes for Health. That grant pays for people's salaries, consumables, whatever you need to conduct the research you've proposed.

I had a bunch of other points here, but you know what? I can't be fucking bothered. You can be as skeptical as you want about the things I and my fellow scientists do.
 
Now you see why it is in these circumstances that perhaps a bit of 'socialism' is a good thing - NB I am not generally in favour of socialism.

Soooo, how many effective and safe drugs were actually discovered in the Soviet Union under their socialist medical system, again? :p
 
As I said, I am a scientist in academia. Don't tell me how this shit works. It's my fucking job.

Here, in general, you apply for a research grant from the National Institutes for Health. That grant pays for people's salaries, consumables, whatever you need to conduct the research you've proposed.

I had a bunch of other points here, but you know what? I can't be fucking bothered. You can be as skeptical as you want about the things I and my fellow scientists do.
Why the attack?

Soooo, how many effective and safe drugs were actually discovered in the Soviet Union under their socialist medical system, again? :p

I am not advocating that all or even many drugs are developed in this non profit way. And I would suggest that the Soviet Union was a communist country not a socialist one myself. The term means different things to different people I suppose.

My point is that capitalism can only work if there is a profit motive (and for publicly quoted companies for example it is the duty of the board of directors to maximise the profits).

Making drugs that do not make a profit is therefore not in their interests. Even if we go the via the charity route there are finite limits.

Nothing I or anyone else says will change the situation anyway but some people have not recognised this weakness in the system. My thought is that for some diseases that it will never ever be profitable to make drugs for (There are some available in Ukania for example that cost 10,000GBP per annum that the NHS virtually refuses to buy due to the cost). The drug companies have to charge that to recoup their costs but they meet resistance and hence the price goes up. All I was saying was perhaps governments could look at some of these areas.

I seem to have got Skidd all steamed up.
 
Last edited:
Seriously? You just told me my efforts are worthless because of your paranoia over pharmaceutical companies, and told me how research (my goddamn field) works against me.
 
Maybe the both of you need to step away from the computer.

Please? :(

EDIT:
Just listen to this and think of happy things.

[video=youtube;IDjUp--A1lk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDjUp--A1lk[/video]
 
Last edited:
Seriously? You just told me my efforts are worthless because of your paranoia over pharmaceutical companies, and told me how research (my goddamn field) works against me.

I am sorry can you show me where I posted that you efforts are worthless? Please quote post number - if I did say that then I will amend my post according.

If you are in academia are you not doing fundamental research to hand on to drug companies to build upon you fundamental work to develop a working drug that they will bring to market? That work could be used by my mythical government backed drug agency that develops drugs that for one reason or another the drug companies will not develop could it not?

In post 96527 I meant, of course when I said 'you' I was referring to any scientist not you personally, turn of phrase my bad. My point was who is going to pay for anyone to find cures that do not make money. I have expanded on the point when I answered Spectre.

Jay hi! nice to hear from you.
 
Last edited:
Oh yea:

Who is going to pay your salary to discover the drugs? If you work for a drug company they will only put you on projects that would make them money, if you find the drug that they are looking for, you will not get the opportunity to work on projects with no hope of a profit anyway.

Even IF say the government pay for you to make the discovery which drug company is going to pass all the FDA stuff, and market the drug to make money unless there is a large market?

You personally do not have the money, nor access to the money to do all the testing and pass the FDA scrutiny, make, market, sell the drug, the costs involved are huge, actually doing the work in discovering the drug is small potatoes.

And if the drug was discovered by you when working for someone else as an employee it is their property to do with as they see fit, not yours. And if they can not see a profit then it will not be sent to market even if you do turn up something unexpected.

Now you see why it is in these circumstances that perhaps a bit of 'socialism' is a good thing - NB I am not generally in favour of socialism.

The way I read this was:

No one will pay me to conduct research into a rare disease. And if I do discover a drug, I don't have the means nor the money to put it through the FDA and out to market, and therefor nothing will come of it. If the institution I work for doesn't see a profit in it, then they will offer no help to put it out to market. Therefor, my work will never be made available to those who need it, and all is for naught simply because there won't be enough profit in it.
 
Nope that was not my intension, sorry if it read like that.

I still think that there is a big difficulty in getting drug companies to work on drugs for rare diseases because of the market forces and the finite amount that they could charge for any treatment. There is possibly an issue with drug companies and magic bullet cures even for common diseases. I was suggesting - the the main part of my intended post - that there may be a way around this with government intervention (aka socialism, not the communist variety). This was supposed to lead on to the main point that Capitalism which works in 99% of cases is not perfect (see Ninja loans too) and the solutions developed under other methods of government may have their uses.

Right none of my posts were intended to dis you. For all I know you are another Alexander Fleming, the 'you' was not you if you see what I mean but generic. If it came across like that I apologise.

//Edit The costs in getting drugs to market are huge all that testing and FDA stuff, this is also a disincentive for low volume drugs too. However if you know better I am willing to listen.
 
Last edited:
Hey, let's all think happy thoughts about a 35 year old white guy with a Ph.d in Economics using the word "ish" when discussing the Greek economic clusterf*ck.
 
//Edit The costs in getting drugs to market are huge all that testing and FDA stuff, this is also a disincentive for low volume drugs too. However if you know better I am willing to listen.

Search for information about "orphan drugs". There is a special program in the US for that.
 
If you are in academia are you not doing fundamental research to hand on to drug companies to build upon you fundamental work to develop a working drug that they will bring to market? That work could be used by my mythical government backed drug agency that develops drugs that for one reason or another the drug companies will not develop could it not?

what?

Here is an example of how things can, and have, worked:
A scientist applies for, and gets a grant to research a particular disease. This grant supplements his salary, and pays for the entirety of his lab's salary (or at least those who are working on that particular project). This grant also pays for the consumables, and other costs to conduct the research. This research may generate fundamental knowledge from which a drug can be developed, but it can also find an actual drug to be sent directly for FDA approval. Pharmas are not the only route for drug discovery. Almost all pharmas are started because someone in academia directly developed a drug, or developed a screening method for diagnosing patients, or something else directly related to patient care. Pharmas do not have to be the end all, be all for drug discovery. I have spent many years researching a disease that only afflicts 1000 people WORLDWIDE. I got paid for it from several grants we received. With these grants, we were able to conduct limited patient trials for a particular drug that we believed could help. In the end, the drug did not help, but we were still able to conduct a limited drug trial with our government-provided grants. And this is the problem, all the altruistic people who don't want to be sucked into capitalist ideals of large profits? They're in academia. No one enters academia to become millionaires. We just want to help. Either by adding to fundamental knowledge, or by discovering a breakthrough drug.

So as I keep saying, if you want to push pharma back in its place, HELP FUND ACADEMIC RESEARCH.
 
what?

Here is an example of how things can, and have, worked:
A scientist applies for, and gets a grant to research a particular disease. This grant supplements his salary, and pays for the entirety of his lab's salary (or at least those who are working on that particular project). This grant also pays for the consumables, and other costs to conduct the research. This research may generate fundamental knowledge from which a drug can be developed, but it can also find an actual drug to be sent directly for FDA approval. Pharmas are not the only route for drug discovery. Almost all pharmas are started because someone in academia directly developed a drug, or developed a screening method for diagnosing patients, or something else directly related to patient care. Pharmas do not have to be the end all, be all for drug discovery. I have spent many years researching a disease that only afflicts 1000 people WORLDWIDE. I got paid for it from several grants we received. With these grants, we were able to conduct limited patient trials for a particular drug that we believed could help. In the end, the drug did not help, but we were still able to conduct a limited drug trial with our government-provided grants. And this is the problem, all the altruistic people who don't want to be sucked into capitalist ideals of large profits? They're in academia. No one enters academia to become millionaires. We just want to help. Either by adding to fundamental knowledge, or by discovering a breakthrough drug.

So as I keep saying, if you want to push pharma back in its place, HELP FUND ACADEMIC RESEARCH.


Obviously it works differently in our two countries I think money is channelled through the Science Research Council and they mainly fund fundamental research, i.e. stuff not immediate useful to drug companies, generally they find avenues to investigate and the work gets published and picked up by the drug companies. Generally not work that the drug companies would do. At least that is how I though it worked.

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/Pages/Home.aspx

Still could be wrong (SRC does other stuff as well as medical research). The Medical Research council is a part of the SRC and its web site address is below.

http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index.htm

That is all for now.
 
Last edited:
I'm reasonably sure SRC and NIH operate in the same way. Yes, they mainly fund fundamental research, but they do offer alternative avenues should you discover a drug. It's in everyone's benefit, the scientist's, SRC's, humanity's, to allow a drug to reach market, or at the very least let it be known that there is a potential treatment. The last thing SRC or NIH want is for a drug to be stalled and never see the light of day simply because "it's beyond fundamental research".
 
Top