General Discussion

Last edited Sat Aug 8, 2020, 05:21 PM - Edit history (1)

...because I'm having a real, real, real, real, hard time understanding at what it is you're trying to get.

Are you asking whether for tax reasons, drug development is free to anyone who does it?

You do know, don't you, that there are people who lose everything when a drug program fails...or do you?

No, drug development is not free, and in fact, it a high risk business, as anyone who has worked in it knows.

I have supported projects - omapatrilat comes to mind - on which billions of dollars were spent - it was in the pre-NDA stage - and it was never approved, not a single pill sold, although personally I think that was a mistake because I suspect that more people died because it wasn't available, than would have died from its serious side effect, but that's just my opinion, and not that of the FDA scientists, who I will admit, were better trained than I am..

The Rise and Fall of Omapatrilat

Every industry can write off some expenses, but no, R&D is not free for any company. Pharmaceutical companies can and do fail in a business sense as well as in a technical sense. They can and do make a profit on their investments, just like car companies, computer companies, food companies.

Food companies are more essential than are pharmaceutical companies. Do you actively question whether they make a profit? Should food companies be examined to see if they are altruistic? Why this special focus on the need for altruism in pharma companies? How about book companies? They are important cogs in education of children, are they not? Should we wonder if book companies are altruistic? Of course, we do under fund our schools, and make highly unreasonable demands on teachers, and now actively threaten their health. Should they do what they do out of altruism? (I'm not denying that some do, when I ask this, but I am not expecting it should be required of them) I get a strong feeling that you're engaged in selective attention.

Perhaps your life is entirely altruistic in your own estimation with whatever it is you do, but as a pharmaceutical scientist, I don't feel a shred of altruistic appreciation of what we do, in my industry, in any of your questions.

Although you deny it, I sense hostility to what we do in my industry.

Now, I'm not here to say that everything I've seen in my career is entirely honorable - I have seen things I abhorred - but I question whether there is any industry that can make the claim of complete moral purity.

It is also true that some drugs of importance were discovered in academic institutions using grants, and that NIH scientists have advanced science, but the reality is that these institutions - including the government, to whom companies with which I've worked have paid royalties - profit from their input as well. It's not why they do what they do, but they do profit. The new chemistry building at Princeton University was built with pharmaceutical royalties.

I can't think of any major drug that was discovered and developed in a purely socialist nirvana with no one making a dime.

It is neither immoral nor unwise to expect reward for your work.

I am a life long Democrat, and a political liberal who believes in justice and human rights, but I am tired of my industry being treated like some kind of bogey man by people in this party.

You're so concerned about altruism? How about reading about Dr. Roy Vagelos, the former President of Merck. I've heard him speak on what it took to bring HepB vaccines to China. He had to fight everyone - including some in the Chinese government - but fight he did, because it was the right thing to do.

How about his work on curing river blindness?

You think Merck made a ton of money off those children on the rivers in Africa whose families lived on less than a dollar a day?

Dr. Vagelos gave a shit about humanity. I've known thousands of people in my industry who have worked day and night to live up to his example.