“government enforced monopoly (patent)”
Another saddening view, demonstrating the lack of understanding of free markets.
Patents are required because patent is property.
E.g., I am the only one that can sell my house. I have a monopoly on it.
Nevertheless, if I price it too high, no one buys it and I lower my price. So your disbelief is unfounded.
Not having a patent system in place would be like someone being able to take my house and sell it out from under me.
In the pharma world, there would be no innovation without patents. No reason to invest millions of dollars in research when someone else swipes it away and charges less because they didn’t have to spend the research money.
It only takes a couple cents to make a pill, and you don’t need a PhD to figure out how to do it.
Reading the article, I see the same scam being perpetrated by the insurance companies that we eventually pay for. It mentions that Turing is capping co-payments to $10.
OK, now the serfs are overjoyed that it only costs them that much while the balance of the $750/pill is SUPPOSEDLY paid for by insurance. The only problem is that your insurance premium is calculated on the expected costs to the insurance companies.
Now, how long have we heard about insurance companies never, ever paying the first full amount of a claim? That’s right, they always negotiate that down by very large amounts according to those who are desperately trying to get their money so they can recoup their salaries and overheads to keep their business cash flow going.
So, since the premiums you are paying are a reflection of the “expected” full costs but the payout is usually well below that, the insurance company pockets the difference, because you are paying for it in advance based off the models of projected costs rather than actual.
Yes, you are the only one who can sell your house. But I can build another one that looks just like it and your property rights will not be violated. The purpose of a patent is to maintaining a price, but price is not a property right. You can sell your house, but you can't force a buyer to pay your price, nor prevent him from buying elsewhere if he doesn't like your price. The reason you lower price is because the buyer has other options you can't control. If you don't like the price of a patented drug however, your suffering or death doesn't affect the price of the drug whatsoever. Some "free market" eh?
You can't call anything free if it involves the government threatening you.