The cost of research is huge; so is the failure rate too making it uneconomical to price new drugs within the reach of common man unless governments subsidize.

What bothers me is why MNCs do not come together in conducting these research in a collaborative manner and share the profits of successful drugs through a royalty? Sounds naive? If profit only is the motive, it is! But if it is the opportunity to add health and wellness to humanity that drives the effort, as the author suggests, then this may not sound as naive…

The problem is that when you look at how established drug companies perform their practices, they spend more money on maintaining their patents, and making new variations on an old drug that works “better” (so that when the patent runs out they can continue to monopolize the market), that the “new” work gets lost in the noise.

Sure, it’s a business. Does it have to be quite so oily of one?

Patents give you mny years of protection. After that, you should have gotten a new discovery that will give you another 14 years. You shouldn’t be spending most of your money trying to hold on to niche markets. Nor should you be spending all your money only on drugs that are “aximum profit protential”.

Why aren’t big pharma doing any real research on cheap cures and treatments for common ailments? Why, for example, does no-one seem to know that ethyelne glycol, applied topically, rids you of foot fungus? (That’s antifreeze, by the way, available for pennies compared to antifungal remedies which don’t work as well)

Yes, It’s a business. But it doesn’t have to be one that sacrifices health for profit.