Quote:
Originally Posted by mapuc
I guess you're right.
Let me take an example from Denmark and peoples medicine or the need for it.
In the latest economical issue between the state and the community, the state couldn't give the community extra money, due to this many hospital has to cut down on workers, why ?
Profit hunters-that's why-
The medicine that is made cost maybe a little more than last year, but there are those, without guilt, who would not hesitate to sell their own children for money or in this case earn big profit on sick people.
It was them I was thinking about when writing my post.
Markus
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I have to disagree with you Markus, many of us and many of our relatives are alive right now because making medicine is profitable, if it wasn't nobody would do it.
It is a very expensive process and very risky - lots of drugs get refused approval to go to market and the money spent on them is largely wasted (there are very few profitable "secondary uses" like Viagra, which was meant to be a heart drug for the elderly), so to stay in business drug companies must make a decent profit on the drugs that they can sell.
On an individual level, would you rent your house out for a trivial return, just so someone can have a roof over their head? remember you have hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in the asset, various ongoing costs related to it and massive liability issues if the house falls down and injures someone.
So of course you want a return that justifies the investment and the risk.
The drug companies spend billions on research, another company could get to market at any time with a better or even just a cheaper product and make it valueless, a regulator could, for good or spurious reasons, deny the ability to sell it on any one of a number of grounds, if it gets to market there are any number of potential liability issues - it could have an adverse effect when combined with another drug or even with something as normal as grapefruit juice and there is the fear of the disaster scenario like thalidomide.
So of course the drug companies want a return that justifies the investment and the risk.
If you are religious thank your god for the profit motive.