this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
13 points (84.2% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

6295 readers
111 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!


How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.


If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.



Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)


  • If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
  • If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].


Rules:

1. NO POLITICS


Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.


2. Be civil.


Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...


Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.


5. No trolling.


This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.



Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

While I support IP for individuals, I don’t support it for large companies and definitely not for drug companies.

I understand the money involved in making drugs, but you should not be able to monopolize a life saving drug and charge exorbitant money for it. Most of the initial drug research is done by scientists not associated with drug company.

top 9 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Drug companies should be allowed to make back their investment and should be allowed up make reasonable profit. They should not be allowed to make unlimited profit forever.

Drugs produced as a result of publicly funded research should be manufactured and sold at a reasonable profit to support more publicly funded research.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The root of this issue is just having patents for those drugs and not allowing generic drug makes manufacture drugs that are a lot more affordable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are a lot more affordable because the generic drug manufacturers didn't pay for the research and development. They're taking the product of someone else's hard work, voting it, and selling it for less. That's easy when you didn't spend money developing the drug. There had to be some profit in making drugs if you want companies to do it but what I'm saying is that that should not be unlimited.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I disagree. If the patent was never filed the compound is hard to reverse engineer. Even then it has to go to drug trials.

As I stated before most of the research is done by researchers. And drug companies mostly spend on advertising and lobbying and executive pay compared to the money spent on research.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Like I said...if the research GND development is publicly funded then the drug should be public and we should pay enough for it to pay for the research into the next drug. Socialism.

If a company pays for the research and development then they should be allowed to make their investment back with reasonable but not unlimited profit and not forever. Limited capitalism.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, don't you see? Companies should spend billions of dollars developing a drug and just give it away at cost.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Straw man. Come back when you're not going to use childish devices and are ready to have a real discussion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure you know what a strawman is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Drug patents aren't guaranteed for life. Companies get a 20 year patent and then a generic form of that drug can be made. The generic form is identical to the branded version so not buying generic is a waste of money, and don't feel bad for the pharma corp that made the original drug, they typically have made billions in profits by the time the 20 year patent is over.

One issue is that pharma corps will often change the formula or delivery method of their drug just before the 20 year patent is up. This improved version of the drug gets its own 20 year patent. The original patent for insulin can be used by anyone...except its for extracting it from animals. The modern day insulin is human insulin and produced in a different way, but that patent is different so the company can keep it exclusive. Also instead of selling insulin in bottles companies have created automatic injection systems, which is great, but those also have patents.

While that sucks, most countries have universal healthcare and don't actually need to care about the costs of life saving drugs.

load more comments
view more: next ›