It amazes me how many people actually buy the argument that drug companies don’t really want to cure people. The argument goes like this:

Pharmaceutical companies could cure just about any illness, but they don’t want to, because there is more money in TREATING illnesses rather than CURING them.

That argument is so ridiculously shallow. The ones selling it are either trying to make money from homeopathic cures (which tend only to treat illnesses, not cure them) or are trying to win some political office.

The fact is, pharmaceutical companies DO try to cure illnesses because they know that the first one to market with a cure rather than a treatment will make the enormous profits needed to justify the billions they spend in R&D on that cure. Cures AND treatments are profitable, which is why pharmaceutical companies pursue both options for the myriad of diseases which plague mankind.

Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies are a convenient scapegoat for a lot of causes these days. One of my biggest gripes is when governments accuse drug companies of trying to gouge their citizens, then use that excuse to gouge the pharmaceutical industry in the form of price controls.

Forget about the fact that this kind of behaviour is anti-competitive. When the Canadian government, for example, does such a thing, it means that pharmaceutical companies must offset losses they’re forced to take in that market by adjusting prices in markets where there are no price controls.

So, who REALLY subsidizes Canadian pharmaceuticals? We do, of course.

There’s no free lunch, right? The tab for Canada’s lunch is being footed by citizens here in the US.

But that is not my main point for this post. That is a just a gripe I have. I’m tired of paying for other nations to have cheaper drugs.

With that said, no system is perfect, and our capitalist system for drug manufacturers has its weaknesses. One of those weaknesses is that pharmaceutical companies just cannot afford to pursue promising drugs and treatments if there is no profit in it.

After all, most of these companies are shareholder owned. I own a piece of them, as do millions of other investors. And we expect companies, no matter what product they manufacture, to make a profit. If they don’t, we take our money elsewhere. It’s a cold but efficient system which demands the highest margins of profit possible in order to build maximum shareholder value.

Which means that, every now and then, when pharmaceutical companies develop a wonder drug that helps, lets say, children with extremely rare forms of cancer, pharmaceutical companies may have to abandon both their research and the manufacturing of a drug. Why? Because it would be far more expensive to make than it could ever earn in the way of profits, and shareholders like myself will not tolerate such losses.

We’ve probably all heard examples of this. Dateline NBC ran a story recently. While watching the story, everyone wonders how companies could be so cruel as to let people suffer and die rather than take a huge loss manufacturing a drug which might or might not save someone’s loved one.

I can’t help myself; I think the same thing, even though I know rationally that no company can do such a thing and survive. But the emotional side of me insists that there ought to be a way.

And perhaps there is.

Why wouldn’t this be a good opportunity for a public/private partnership? What I mean is, our government throws oodles of money away each year on silly projects, why not throw some money into a fund that would subsidize the manufacture of drugs pharmaceutical companies would otherwise lose money manufacturing and selling?

You could set up a special task force within the FDA to hear petitions from parents and pharmaceutical companies to help fund the manufacturing of drugs that have proven to be effective, yet are too costly for these companies to manufacture. The pharmaceutical company, perhaps, could even waive it’s patent on the drug, perhaps for a fee, and either allow companies which produce generics to manufacture the drugs or allow some other entity to manufacture the drug for those who need it.

This way, pharmaceutical companies would show beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do care, while, at the same time, helping them recoup some of the massive costs incurred in R&D for that particular treatment.

It’s just an initial thought. Perhaps it will shape itself up over time.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com