I don't believe that big Pharma and the insurance industry are evil for the sake of being evil. They are only evil in that they put the profit motive above the well being of those they serve. (Actually, I suppose that is not true as they actually serve the stockholders and not the patients.) Of course, drug companies need to be able to recoup research costs, but when they are the most profitable industry in the world, something is wrong.

If you wonder what my perspective is for this analysis, I am a pharmacist. I struggle every day with efforts to get insurance companies to pay for medicine and with efforts to find cheaper drug alternatives because consumers don't have power in the market and don't have the information necessary to make a free market decision. Pharmacists are trained to be responsible to patients for their healthcare. I believe that most of us are in the profession to help people. Unfortunately, this patient care focus is not instilled in the disease state management industry executives.

However, I find it rather disconcerting that the firms which claim that they need the huge profits to fund R&D spend more on advertising in the US and other first world nations. Their lobbying is extensive – rumour here suggests 2 lobbyist per congress person in Washington to wine dine and some times bed people of influence to ensure that the rules, patent systems, regulations etc run there way. In Australia it does not seem to be this intense, yet it is happening. The aim is to influence regulators to advantage their industry.

It is interesting to see the huge discrepancies in prices being charged in the US compared with Australian customers for drugs and pesticides. Some is due to publicly funded schemes which subsidise pharmaceuticals for the Australian people. (PBS system in Australia) To place a new drug on the list, it must be demonstrated to be significantly better than those which that drug is replacing. Interesting how much lobbying has been undertaken by Big Phama to reduce these criteria to allow for the next generation of slightly tweaked higher cost products still under patent protection, to replace the well functioning generics.

For pesticides, anyone can set up a distribution system in the US like one can in Australia, apart that the new comers must buy into some very expensive “exclusive club memberships” in the USA which totally inhibit small players.

Both countries, like most other first world nations require extensive registration approvals for the pesticide prior to sale. These can be quite expensive for ‘new’ actives, but for a copy of a well established generic, it is normally not a prohibitive exercise. In Australia, one just has to satisfy the regulators that your product is the same as one already on the market. Yes, there are problems here too with undue influence by the dominant companies.

Where regulations are influenced by dominate cooperate insiders to keep new players out of the market, is that not monopolistic abuse ( fascism (?) or poorly applied socialism) not free enterprise?

I wonder some time just who in the US is watching this issue. As far as the third world is concerned, to maintain patents and to charge first world prices for these products for all, and so preventing the poor form accessing these drugs, one may as well drop bombs. The effect is similar. To prevent the access by new players with quality generics is again to restrict competition and rob your own people.

Once the patents runout competition applies. Prices will drop by a factor of 5 to 50 depending on the product. That does not mean a loss of quality. That is a problem for the regulators to manage. Big companies can have disasters as well. The patent should protect the innovation, but also remember that many of the tools, much of training and some of the discoveries exploited were originally developed though public funded Universities etc. Ever greening patents should be highly restricted. These companies are not separate from our civilization, but are creatures of it. They must be good citizens as well.

Time also for a good review of IP and genetics – another time.

Please note the recent anti monopolist activities by the EU re artificially high drug prices
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