this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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They aren't wholly theorized and funded by the government.
By far the most expensive step of drug development is the phase 3 clinical trial, the final stage before a drug can be released. The government doesn't fund those at all. Government mostly funds pre-clinical trials (ie in animals or tissue culture) which are way cheaper.
The average government grant for a biomed research proposal is nearly $600,000.
The average phase 3 clinical trial costs $20 million.
Should be a non-issue for them to fund the billions in research grants afforded to universities, then. Privatizing profits and socializing the initial investment. Just saying, I’d like a hundred extra dollars per year. Were these entities so beneficent as to avoid bankrupting people forced to use their medications, I might feel differently.
Government-funded research is typically basic science research. It results in general knowledge that is usable by anyone, ie it does not support a specific product. No pharma company will pay for something that helps competitors as much (or possibly more) than it helps them.
For example, government-funded research showed how injected mRNA could be directly absorbed and expressed by human cells in tissue culture. That remarkable discovery can be used by any pharma company to make a product. So pharma companies started developing various mRNA vaccines, and testing them in humans (Moderna, Pfizer, etc). But no pharma company would have funded the initial research that showed this was possible.
Thanks for weighing in. Is there somewhere I can learn more about this? Big Pharma getting rich off tax payer funded research is an often repeated claim on internet forums, and I’d like to educate myself some more on this topic. Thanks!
In general, I think "Big Pharma gets rich off taxpayer funded research" is kind of like "Ford gets rich off taxpayer funded roads" or "Apple gets rich from taxpayer funded schools". They are true in one sense, but that doesn't mean those companies would pay for those things. That's why government ends up paying for common goods.
Note that "Big Pharma gets rich off taxpayer funded research" is different from "Big Pharma charges more than necessary to cover its own research costs." You can find a pretty good analysis of those costs here.