It is a harrowing proposition: that in trying to control drug prices for 67 million Medicare patients now, we might inadvertently prevent the development of future drugs that could save lives. Implied, if not stated outright, is that we’re putting a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s or some other intractable disease in jeopardy.
But we have good reasons to believe that the current policy won’t have such a trade-off any time soon. For one, pharma is hugely profitable, and these negotiated prices, while potentially chipping away at profit margins, should hardly entirely dampen the incentive to innovate, according to a couple of key studies of the industry. Two, if we are worried about future innovation, we should be focused on making it cheaper to develop drugs – and this is actually one area where AI is showing promise. By identifying the best candidates for possible treatments early in the research process, we could speed up development and continue to reduce costs — without losing out on tomorrow’s breakthroughs. …
Penicillin was a kind of miracle. But it wasn’t locked in a vault and used to extort a handful of wealthy people for every penny they were worth.
The real miracle of penicillin was in how it got such universal adoption and use in so little time.
Science isn’t a miracle. It’s the hard work of scientists. Perhaps pharmaceutical companies should be required to operate with the same transparency as nonprofits.