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Conversation has been slow here. I feel like the standards have increased to the point where people are afraid to post (except of course for bad faith posters who don't care).
So, let me try a post that's more of a conversation starter and less of a PhD thesis.
According to Bernie Sanders, it costs about $5 to make a monthly dose of Ozempic, the blockbuster-weight loss drug. Americans pay about $1000/month. Canadians pay $155. Germans pay $59.
The stock of the company which makes the drug, Novo Nordisk, has doubled since the beginning of 2023. (I considered buying in 2022 but didn't because I thought I was already too late 💀) It now has a market cap of nearly $600 billion, making it the most valuable company in Europe.
I assume that if companies were forced to charge the same price in U.S. as they do in Europe, the global pharma industry would become insolvent.
So why is the United States paying for > 100% of global pharma research? And how can we fix the glitch?
How is it a glitch having access to new medicines? Expensive drugs but more drugs is better than options only being limited to Tylenol or Asprin, which is what you'd get if there was no profit incentive. No one pays out of pocket for life saving drugs anyway. I am perfectly fine with the makers of Ozempic and Mounjaro making billions if it means reducing obesity and making people's lives better. Americans have high expectations for healthcare; they want some cutting-edge drug that costs tens of thousands of dollars a month to add maybe a few months of life for terminal cancer. Much of healthcare is for end of life spending.
This doesn't address my concerns. On a global level, yes, spending on drugs must pay for research and development. But why must the United States specifically pay for more than 100% of the cost of research?
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