A Vicious Circle

I've no doubt that the US has more patents than others, but wonder how much of that is due to the diligence of your lawyers rather than your researchers.
Before leaving the discussion on the Nobel lists, I was surprised to see that a significant portion of those attributed to the US were actually awarded to people of other nationalities who had taken their research to the cashed up research centres in the US to finish it off, as most likely many patents are too. So more a tribute to the financial support system than national innovation. I did enjoy seeing names like Gore, Carter and Obama in the Peace category though.

Could a part of that be that the major drug companies are headquarted in the US, and that other countries have different rules about patents? I know here we just changed our patent rules so that software cant be patented anymore, but dont know how our rules regarding drugs are different to the US/UK/AUS rules are.

PeterZ wrote:

Daryl wrote:PeterZ, thanks for that and it did confirm my belief that the US has great medical researchers, however I can't resist pointing out that you had 99 winners (Nobel in medicine), and we had 7 which equates to 105 when the 15 to 1 population balance is factored in.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. I'm sure each of us could cherry pick statistics that "prove" our point.
Personally I can't see how this relates to a medical welfare net, or why anyone would regard unofficial immigrants as being not deserving of full medical assistance. We all should be treated with dignity and respect.

Let's go with Patents, then.
http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/wipo_pub_931.html#f1

Please look at the patents by nation and type.

Between 2001-2005 the US has had 54.9% (43,317) of all Pharma patents and 56.8%(32,139) of all Biotech patents. Japan is the closest nation with 9.8%(7,738) and 12.5%(7,094) for Pharma and Biotech. Aussies come in at 1.2%(958) and 1.3%(760) respectively.

I believe that patents might hold a much closer correlation to innovations in medicine than Nobel Prizes. Either way, the US is an innovation engine and changes of such magnitude to this engine is a risk. Nothing anyone has posted or brought forth into the public discourse has suggested that this engine will not be impacted by the changes in Obamacare.

Given the sheer crappyness of this law, why on earth should we willingly accept it? The media can't lie about its praises enough to maintain positive public opinion of the POS.

Daryl wrote:I've no doubt that the US has more patents than others, but wonder how much of that is due to the diligence of your lawyers rather than your researchers.
Before leaving the discussion on the Nobel lists, I was surprised to see that a significant portion of those attributed to the US were actually awarded to people of other nationalities who had taken their research to the cashed up research centres in the US to finish it off, as most likely many patents are too. So more a tribute to the financial support system than national innovation. I did enjoy seeing names like Gore, Carter and Obama in the Peace category though.

I thought you might feel that way. If it is more a financial support issue, my concerns are even more valid. The changes in our health care system would change how and by how much financial support would flow to those who do research or apply research to cures and treatments.

Thank you for helping to illustrate my point.

Could a part of that be that the major drug companies are headquarted in the US, and that other countries have different rules about patents? I know here we just changed our patent rules so that software cant be patented anymore, but dont know how our rules regarding drugs are different to the US/UK/AUS rules are.

Basically is costs pharma 10-20 years in time and a billion dollars or more in R&D costs for each new drug on the market. Somebody has to pay for that! And furthermore, the investors that finance all of this need to make a return on investment commensurate with that level of risk, otherwise they'll take their money and invest in a software startup where it only takes a few months and a few million dollars to develop a new product. The investors are in it for the money and they need to get it or they will be out. And it is so expensive to develop a new drug that we NEED investors.

Historically the US has provided about half the profits worldwide to pay for all of this. Which is why any company who wants to make money is sure to patent the compound in the US. The rest of you single payers are basically negotiating at gunpoint with the companies, here's our offer you will take it (it's not quite that bad but it's close) and generally those offers are not high enough to pay for Europe/Japan/Australia/New Zealand's share of the R&D plus return on investment. So the money to pay for all of this comes disproportionately from the US, where pharma companies can charge what the market will bear.

There has been pushback on these prices for years and it has gotten a lot worse with Obamacare. The net result is that pharma as an industry is downsizing R&D. Which means for the rest of you, a lot fewer new drugs.

http://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-re ... yoffs-2012