Headline of the Day

Experts: Negotiating Big Pharma's Prices Won't Stifle Innovation — They Don't Use the Money to Innovate!

—Institute for New Economic Thinking

This is true.

Big Pharma's money overwhelmingly goes to advertising, executive compensation, lobbying and stock buybacks.

………

Bottom line: big drug companies rake in enormous profits without prioritizing investments in medication development or innovation. They simply snap up drug rights that the federal government paid for (us, in other words), focus on boosting their stock prices, and overcharge the public. Surely, Americans deserve better.

Using Bayh-Dole march-in rights, which has never happened in the almost 50 years since the law passed, or better yet, repealing Bayh-Dole and having the US government retain the rights to the research which it has funded, would go a long way toward ameliorating the abusive finance driven business strategies in the pharmaceutical sector.

We would probably get more and better drugs too, because we would see fewer researchers being pressured by college administrators to create and sell blockbuster research.

The current system impedes scientific discourse and results in regulatory arbitrage, particularly through the patent and drug exclusivity process, being the primary focus of the drug companies, not research.