Did Mr. Silverman appoint you as guardians/gatekeepers of his site. I haven’t seen that you have contributed much other than to promote the pharma and medical businesses, so I suspect you have a vested interest in directing discussions.

I have lived with a fellow who has had insulin-dependent diabetes for 50 years. He, like numbers of other diabetics, cannot tolerate rDNA insulin. A recent book published by Prof.Med Arthur Teuscher, MD and practicing endocrinologist, does back-up all I have mentioned regarding the pharmaceutical industry and their lack of caring. rDNA insulin analogs were created because of their patentability/price rewards. No need or benefit for these products has ever been proven–except for the profitability.

To think that the insulin-industry/diabetes hold a unique position . . . that WE are the only ones being duped/enslaved by BigPharma . . .would reveal only an unwarranted naivete.

Deniers or enablers or advocates (whatever label you choose for yourself) need only look to the scientific-misconduct site to see how nasty this industry has become. But I suspect that you have learned from your betters that when a message has merit, you first ignore it . . . then villify the messenger. How very PC of you.

Melody and Lisa Van Psycho are two of our resident crusaders.
They both need to find a man, or change some batteries.

Do you post the same repetitive comments on other blogs or is pharmalot blessed with your comments. Have you noticed no one else has jumped on the bandwagon for old insulin? GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON! The argument does not even matter, it is gone and no one is bringing it back. Do you have any other thoughts on the entire world of medicine? Or are you a single, 1 thought person. I am so impressed when people champion causes in which they have not been touched. For instance a white person supporting sickle cell research and care. That shows actual compassion for others outside of your family - consider broadening you horizon. I recommend prostate cancer awareness and bone marrow screening for potential donation to a patient with blood cancers. Do something productive, join the registry, save a life. It is fast, easy and life saving.

http://www.marrow.org

I’m for anything that takes away the power Pharma currently has - false information from cheerleader drug reps, misleading and boring DTC ads, bribery of Congress, riding heard over the FDA, and of course - should we even mention the thousands of deaths and complications caused by drugs with hidden, lethal side effects.

It is obvious that everyone above cares only about Wall St. Who among you care about human lives?

Congratulations , Senator Sanders, for a novel and ethical idea.

Kremer’s 1998 paper looked at patent buy-out strategies, which is a related but different approach, that is still tied to the possible profits from a monopoly, and a willingness to pay critera that now drives too much investment into “me too” products that are not important medically.

The 10 year pay-out roughly corresponds to the effective period of market exclusivity under current market exclusivity rules. This is a 10 payday approach, where drug developers start getting money right away (year 1), but annual payments are adjusted each year based upon new evidence of the usefulness of the products. Some have suggested a 15 year payoff schedule. The shorter term is designed to give investors a faster payoff.

Plenty of ideas sound great in theory, but putting something like this into practice is a fool’s gamble that has multiple inherent problems.

How about instead, we actually have the company applying for a patent pay the fees of the patent office, which would help to ensure that they can allocate the proper resources to each patent?

Not sure of the accuracy of the data, but I recently saw somewhere that a patent reviewer in the patent office has something like 48 hours to review each patent, which may be a few sheets of paper, or may be 20 boxes of information. How many of those boxes do you think actually get opened and reviewed in 48 hours?

The scope of the patent should determine how much the potential patent holder pays.

Oh, and let’s not forget that there needs to be a huge change in the way they are evaluated, specifically in the case of “me-too” drugs.

The new Soma 250 is just a lower dose of Soma, but somehow the manufacturer appears to have gotten some new type of patent protection, or extended patent protection. This makes no sense!

Also, in regards to part of Dave Hamil’s statement above, I have to disagree that marketing and sales are necessary parts of getting doctor’s to use a new product. Sure, it may help, but if there’s a new drug out that has better outcomes with less potential negative effects (including exhorbitant costs), Doctors will use them regardless.

Informal studies have shown that doctors really don’t know what each prescription medication costs, and ARE influenced by all those sales reps pushing their biased materials in their face each week.

Contrary to popular belief, doctors do participate in CME events, read peer-reviewed articles and journals, and study the studies that are released…..but they also accept free gifts, meals and other such items in return for information on “this new drug that’s so great”.

Just a few of the issues.