Forums | MacLife

Are they manufacturing the drug by reverse engineering it, or did they somehow steal the chemical formulas?

oatmeal wrote:

By all means, pimp the company's bottom line while people die because they're unable to afford the drugs that could save them.

Before you accuse me of putting words in your mouth, please show me any post in this thread (before this one, where I responded to you in kind) where I villified your company.  Show me an instance in this thread where I said anything about the practices of your company or indeed any "pharma company."  Then we'll talk about putting words in people's mouths.

I'm talking about an action being taken by the Brazillian government to save the lives of its citizens, multibillion dollar corporations (which will lose nothing anyway because the people who need their products most can't possibly afford it) be damned. I say again, "Go Brazil!"  They're doing the Right Thing.

I was addressing more than one person with that single post.  --I do not intend to spend a lot of time in this thread for obvious reasons. 
Not every statement applied completely to everyone.  The "villifying pharma" wasn't specifically directed at you.  Much of the rest was. 
I hope you give as much consideration to what did apply to you as you do to what didn't. 

Pariah wrote:

Oh, zdecker...Time was even conservitives at least gave lip service to values beyond profit and power instead of acting like a gang of  Ferengi traders.

Left wingers, right wingers...
Liberals, conservatives...
You're the only one bringing these labels up, and they don't seem particularly relevent here. 

Later.

You should take note that the research behind Viagra was intended to develop a vasodialator for people with heart and vascular problems. Getting a boner was a side effect that Pfizer found more marketable and profitable.

Last edited by Robert B. (2005-06-25 8:48 pm)

Pariah wrote:

In the real world we do the mental work to weigh the balence of benifit. In this case thousands of lives against a relatively trivial amount of income for a PharmaCo.

And if a factory wants to build and employee 1,000 people giving 1000 families better lifes than ( cue darth vader theme) Walmart but get the city to use ED to evict 20 families from homes.........
How about if through torture we get the answer that stops a plot that will kill millions. Worth the price or not?

When do you become the evil you despise?

Farmerkev wrote:

Pariah wrote:

In the real world we do the mental work to weigh the balence of benifit. In this case thousands of lives against a relatively trivial amount of income for a PharmaCo.

And if a factory wants to build and employee 1,000 people giving 1000 families better lifes than ( cue darth vader theme) Walmart but get the city to use ED to evict 20 families from homes.........
How about if through torture we get the answer that stops a plot that will kill millions. Worth the price or not?

When do you become the evil you despise?

Wow Kev, normally I agree with you... but you are being a little asinine here.

Is it moral for a company to hold a patent on a substance that can save lives, and charge obscenely high prices for it to make their money?  Will Abbot go under if Brasil follows through on their threat? I think not.

From their 2004 Earnings report:

(this is copy and pasted to get my point across)

Gross profit margins were 54.9 percent of net sales in 2004.

Research and development expense, excluding acquired in-process research and development, was $1.7 billion in 2004 and represented 8.6 percent of net sales in 2004

So... some math:

19.7 billion in net sales.  54.9% of that is profit, so 10.8 billion.  Less the 1.7 billion in R&D is around a cool 9 billion for 2004.  that's profit... as in after all their expenses for production, distribution, management, etc.

And you are telling me these guys cant work out an equitable program to allow 3rd world nations to supply a vital drug to their people at something less than the per capita GDP?  Come off it!

Profit is not a dirty word.  Obscene profiteering on the backs of the poor is.

Last edited by Warin (2005-06-25 9:45 pm)

It's not just "Obscene profiteering on the backs of the poor"  You do realize each and every taxpayer lines the pockets of Abbot, etc. for these large profit margins right here in the US courtesy of each states AIDS Drug Assistance Program, unless they're getting special rates for medicine I'm not aware of.

And it's not that I'm anti-Big Pharma particularly (though I find they're use of uber-healthy individuals in AIDS drug advertising counter-productive though they've wised up some to this after eight years or so) or anti-profits.  But at what point is the profit margin too much?  Never?  For example, is it appropriate for Abbot to raise the price of Norvir (a different HIV drug that's also integrated in Kaletra) by 400% in one year?  A lot of it just doesn't make sense and I can only imagine how hopeless it seems in a country as poor as Brazil.

Warin wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

Pariah wrote:

In the real world we do the mental work to weigh the balence of benifit. In this case thousands of lives against a relatively trivial amount of income for a PharmaCo.

And if a factory wants to build and employee 1,000 people giving 1000 families better lifes than ( cue darth vader theme) Walmart but get the city to use ED to evict 20 families from homes.........
How about if through torture we get the answer that stops a plot that will kill millions. Worth the price or not?

When do you become the evil you despise?

Wow Kev, normally I agree with you... but you are being a little asinine here.

Is it moral for a company to hold a patent on a substance that can save lives, and charge obscenely high prices for it to make their money?  Will Abbot go under if Brasil follows through on their threat? I think not.

From their 2004 Earnings report:

(this is copy and pasted to get my point across)

Gross profit margins were 54.9 percent of net sales in 2004.

Research and development expense, excluding acquired in-process research and development, was $1.7 billion in 2004 and represented 8.6 percent of net sales in 2004

So... some math:

19.7 billion in net sales.  54.9% of that is profit, so 10.8 billion.  Less the 1.7 billion in R&D is around a cool 9 billion for 2004.  that's profit... as in after all their expenses for production, distribution, management, etc.

And you are telling me these guys cant work out an equitable program to allow 3rd world nations to supply a vital drug to their people at something less than the per capita GDP?  Come off it!

Profit is not a dirty word.  Obscene profiteering on the backs of the poor is.

I have a big problem when people start defining what is an appropriate level of profit for someone else.
People in this world are dying this very minute from hunger.
Will you decide that I have made enough profit and want me to give my remaining grain away?
The problem with this particular drug case is it's way too easy to side with the sick and against the company. It appeals to the emotions and overrules reason.
And please, how can they have been making an obscene profit on the poor if the poor can't afford to even buy the product as was the original argument. See, too emotional, not enough reason.

Farmerkev wrote:

People in this world are dying this very minute from hunger.
Will you decide that I have made enough profit and want me to give my remaining grain away?

This would be a decent analogy if you held the patent to produce grain and grain was the only source of food.

No, he said he couldn't voice an opinion because he doesn't speak for his employer.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

And I fail to see why he can't voice an opinion. No doubt his employers would pat him on the back for helping their image by presenting hard facts and fighting the good fight.

I certainly can voice an opinion on this matter.  I choose not to.  There are several reasons for this, including many of the recent news stories I've seen on employees who keep blogs. 
When in doubt, I believe that "no comment" is the best policy. 

No doubt my employer's PR department can manage their own image, present their own hard facts, and fight their own good fight.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

zdecker wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

And I fail to see why he can't voice an opinion. No doubt his employers would pat him on the back for helping their image by presenting hard facts and fighting the good fight.

I certainly can voice an opinion on this matter.  I choose not to.  There are several reasons for this, including many of the recent news stories I've seen on employees who keep blogs. 
When in doubt, I believe that "no comment" is the best policy. 

No doubt my employer's PR department can manage their own image, present their own hard facts, and fight their own good fight.

Still have the werewithal to be snippy, though, yes?

Aw, did he offend you?

I think we all should remember that corporations are permitted to exist by governments. They are chartered, incorporated, and allowed to operate because the "people in charge" said it was okay. Likewise, IP is protected by patents at the indulgence of the government.

In Brazil, as in the USA, government is supposed to represent the masses. You know, democracy.

Therefore, if the government wants to do this, that's really just too bad for the company in question - though I suppose they have recourse in court, since Brazil, afaik, has entered into a couple of international treaties involving copyright and patent law. I think it's a UN thing, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, if Brazil's government (who makes their laws) wants to nullify a patent (that they issued in the first place) that's their right. The drug maker can either take their toys and go home, sell its drugs in other markets, or start making money by training hospital staff.

Mo' ron - I think part of a patent application includes how the stuff works, so when the company in question filed their patent, they gave the Brazilian government all the info they needed to make their own. That info is usually in the public domain so that other people in the field can check it out and make sure that their own research doesn't violate any patents.

Personally, I think patent law in general needs some updating - particularly in the computer industry, we're seeing increasingly general patents - patenting of ideas instead of inventions. For example, in 1998, somebody patented the "portable music jukebox" and Apple's being sued, again.

Because, you know, it wasn't an obvious idea to anybody who ever saw a tape cassette and a 2.5" HD next to each other...

Anyway, that's another thread.

Warin wrote:

As much as Microsoft is the evil empire, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does a hell of a lot for medical care in developing nations. 4 billion or so to date.  And as cynical as I am, I think there is more to it than good press and a tax break.

Nobody ever said Bill isn't a nice guy, he's just a megalomaniac who wants to force his vision on the every computer in the world. Just like a certain other computing industry CEO we know and love. Must be something in the water.