Today’s links Uncle Sam paid to develop a cancer drug and now one guy will get to charge whatever he wants for it: Making billionaires, one patent at a time. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Uncle Sam paid to develop a cancer drug and now one guy will get to charge whatever he wants for it (permalink) The argument for pharma patents: making new medicines is expensive, and medicines are how we save ourselves from cancer and other diseases. Therefore, we will award government-backed monopolies – patents – to pharma companies so they will have an incentive to invest their shareholders’ capital in research. There’s plenty wrong with this argument. For one thing, pharma companies use their monopoly winnings to sell drugs, not invent drugs. For every dollar pharma spends on research, it spends three dollars on marketing: https://www.bu.edu/sph/files/2015/05/Pharmaceutical-Marketing-and-Research-Spending-APHA-21-Oct-01.pdf And that “R&D” isn’t what you’re thinking of, either. Most R&D spending goes to “evergreening” – coming up with minor variations on existing drugs in a bid to extend those patents for years or decades: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680578/ Evergreening got a lot of attention recently when John Green rained down righteous fire upon Johnson & Johnson for their sneaky tricks to prevent poor people from accessing affordable TB meds, prompting this excellent explainer from the Arm and A Leg Podcast: https://armandalegshow.com/episode/john-green-part-1/ Another thing those monopoly profits are useful for: “pay for delay,” where pharma…Pluralistic: Uncle Sam paid to develop a cancer drug and now one guy will get to charge whatever he wants for it (19 Oct 2023)