{"id":2191,"date":"2019-08-21T14:57:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T13:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?p=2191"},"modified":"2019-11-25T17:30:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T17:30:35","slug":"big-pharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/big-pharma\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Pharma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is your capitalist brain on drugs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drug firm Pfizer has discovered that its own arthritis \ntreatment drug Enbrel also seems to cut the risk of Alzheimer\u2019s disease \nby up to 64 percent (New Scientist<\/em>, 15 June, p7). Great, you might think. Over to Pfizer to start cranking out Enbrel by the container load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh but wait, says Pfizer. Actually, our patent on this is due to expire soon, so we won\u2019t be proceeding with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What, you say, you mean you\u2019re not going to make any?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pfizer shakes its head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a 64 percent risk reduction \u2013 are you kidding? That blows every other Alzheimer drug out of the water!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sorry, says Pfizer, no can do. If we don\u2019t make the profit, we don\u2019t make the drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But surely you can get your patent extended, you insist. Old drug, new use, it\u2019s been done before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah well, says Pfizer, we don\u2019t really believe our own data anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alright, you argue, run proper clinical trials then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pfizer bites its lip. Thing is, trials cost, and we\u2019ve \nall lost a packet on failed clinical trials before. All previous \nAlzheimer\u2019s trials have failed, which is why all the major drug firms \nhave closed their Alzheimer\u2019s research units. Basically it\u2019s a huge \nmoney sink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, you ask in increasing desperation, can\u2019t you get government funding to cover this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pfizer smiles. Yeah, good luck with that. Voters want low taxes more than happy granddads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, can\u2019t you release the patent and let another firm make the stuff then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pfizer looks shocked. But that wouldn\u2019t be fair \u2013 it\u2019s our drug!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alzheimer\u2019s affects 37 million people worldwide. But capitalism says no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not make a cystic fibrosis drug instead? Drug firm \nVertex charges \u00a3100,000 a year for the treatment Orkambi, which the NHS \nwon\u2019t pay for, so kids die (New Scientist<\/em>, 15 June, p9). But \nbecause Vertex doesn\u2019t have a valid patent in Argentina, a local firm is\n producing the drug at the bargain rate of \u00a323,000 pa. Vertex is \nfurious, of course, claiming that their sale price is a fair reflection \nof the billions they sank into R&D. Meanwhile the parents of kids \nwith cystic fibrosis have been forced to create a \u2018buyers club\u2019 in order\n to buy wholesale and get the cost down further, a move clinicians \ndescribe as \u2018a desperate act\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patents in capitalism are intended to reward and defend \nintellectual effort and financial investment. But the flip side is that \npatents also kill people either by setting unaffordable prices or \nstopping production at source. In socialism you might get the kudos for \nan invention, but you wouldn\u2019t get a patent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This is your capitalist brain on dregs<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is your capitalist brain on drugs Drug firm Pfizer has discovered that its own arthritis treatment drug Enbrel also seems to cut the risk of Alzheimer\u2019s disease by up to 64 percent (New Scientist, 15 June, p7). Great, you might think. Over to Pfizer to start cranking out Enbrel by the container load. Oh…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2824,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191\/revisions\/2824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}