this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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It's not economy, it's politics. Who gives a fuck if it's profitable for them? They are supposedly here to make medicine, save people. So the solution is not in tech at all, or to be fair it's in old tech like guillotines
They do make medicine that benefit people, but they're going to optimize around profit. The biggest sellers are drugs for very common cancers and for conditions that require lifelong treatment like rheumatoid arthritis. Estimates vary widely, but it costs somewhere in the ballpark of $1 billion to bring a new drug to market.
It just doesn't make sense for a drug company to produce new antibiotics when the point is to stockpile backup antibiotics to use against antibiotic resistance. The point, after all, is to not sell the product so that it is most potent when it is needed. This is one of the areas where I think it's best for governments to chip in.
They're all capitalists. They're here to make money. They just decided that making high cost profitable medicine is how they will do it. Saving people is a small side benefit that comes with people buying the medicine, not the main goal.