Federal Research Center Will Help Develop Medicines

[trud]

Source: New York Times

"The Obama administration has become so concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming out of the pharmaceutical industry that officials have decided to start a billion-dollar government drug development center to help create medicines."


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/health/policy/23drug.html

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Imho, it's long past time to get the development of medicines out of the hands of people whose only motive is profit, and who lie about effectiveness and side effects and price meds through the ceiling.

[HereSince1628]

1. And like the NIH once found, they'll give them away to corporations

to produce. And those corporations will charge Americans many times more than they charge buyers in other countries because both major US political parties allow them to get away with profiteering.

[MsLeopard]

3. That was exactly my first thought

Taxpayer money will provide the R&D then our corporate masters will take it over for the profit. We're so far down the rabbit hole it's scary.

[JJW]

2. Instead of R&D investments

Big Pharma wastes it's money on lobbyists and irritating commercials.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. the head of this center is a religious creationist, sounds like.

and a careful read of the article indicates the federal center
( taxpayer money) will be used to do the expensive research and development that is cutting into big Pharm's profits:

"In this case the center will do as much research as it needs to do so that it can attract drug company investment. "
“The hope would be that any project that reaches the point of commercial appeal would be moved out of the academic support line and into the private sector.”

( Keep in mind that big Pharma spends much much more on advertising than on research.
a quick google turns up dozens of references to this)

Oh, and lookee here...the guy who is heading this center?
He is head of NIH,
"Based in Bethesda, Md., the N.I.H. is the most important source of research money in the world,over the next 14 months it will dole out about $37 billion in research grants and spend $4 billion on research programs at its Maryland campus. " ( 2009 figures,)
again, OUR money.


from this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/policy/09nih.html?ref=francisscollins

He was appointed by Obama in 2009, and the Times reported then some controversy about him, like his born again Christianity thing:

"There are two basic objections to Dr. Collins.
The first is his very public embrace of religion.
He wrote a book called “The Language of God,” and he has given many talks and interviews in which he described his conversion to Christianity as a 27-year-old medical student. Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins’s evangelism. "
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/francis_s_collins/index.html?inline=nyt-per

And he founded THIS:
Biolegos

"BioLogos is led by a group of Christians who are committed to promoting a perspective on the origins of life that is both theologically and scientifically sound."
http://biologos.org/about/team/dr-francis-collins/

Biolegos site says Collins resigned as President when he took NIH job.



Are you hearing what I am hearing?

[Astraea]

5. Great. So after taxpayer money funds the research,

corporations swoop in to 'invest', buy the patent, and then bilk sick people for every dime they can. Oh! And then get a patent extension. Unbelievable.

[jmowreader]

6. My question is, do we NEED a huge amount of new pharma?

Sure we need SOME, but it seems to me that the majority of new pharma put out in the last two years falls into one of two classes:

Class 1: lifestyle pharma. These are the meds that make your eyelashes grow, your penis get hard, your wrinkles go away...you know, nice-to-haves insurance companies love because they know that, with the exception of dick pills and extremely limited applications of botox, they'll never have to pay for them. (Imagine filing a claim for Latisse--they'd hang it on the wall as the funniest claim of the year.)

Class 2: pharma that falls into the "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger," like statins and antidepressants that list 'suicidal thoughts' in the "side effects" box. Uhh...isn't having suicidal thoughts one of the reasons you'd want antidepressants in the first place?