Economics describes human behavior in the aggregate.
If the expectations for returns on pharma become substantially lower, less money will be invested in pharma and they will have less money to invest in R&D.
I don't think Martin Shkreli is a challenge to that thesis.
The Martin Shkreli challenge is that its actually not R&D that money is being deployed its that many people (MS being one example) have found ways to capture consumer surplus in a quasi monopoly environment and then extract maximum prices to a group that has an inelastic demand.
Nothing to do with deploying more R&D in this case.
In terms of expectations on returns of your statement - I would be curious to see the case that increased expectations on returns correlates with positive outcomes. Sure more money in, but that does not equate to better meaningful and better results out.
The Martin Shkreli example is perfect for you because it shows someone raising drugs but we don't have the timeframe to see someone quickly ramping up cheaper generic production because of how quickly he was jailed. His company went bankrupt due to generic competition.
Sure more money in, but that does not equate to better meaningful and better results out.
I believe that spending more on R&D will cause more drugs to be developed. If you disagree, we can agree to disagree - I'm not sure it would be a productive conversation.
Comments
Economics describes human behavior in the aggregate.
If the expectations for returns on pharma become substantially lower, less money will be invested in pharma and they will have less money to invest in R&D.
I don't think Martin Shkreli is a challenge to that thesis.
The Martin Shkreli challenge is that its actually not R&D that money is being deployed its that many people (MS being one example) have found ways to capture consumer surplus in a quasi monopoly environment and then extract maximum prices to a group that has an inelastic demand.
Nothing to do with deploying more R&D in this case.
In terms of expectations on returns of your statement - I would be curious to see the case that increased expectations on returns correlates with positive outcomes. Sure more money in, but that does not equate to better meaningful and better results out.
The Martin Shkreli example is perfect for you because it shows someone raising drugs but we don't have the timeframe to see someone quickly ramping up cheaper generic production because of how quickly he was jailed. His company went bankrupt due to generic competition.
I believe that spending more on R&D will cause more drugs to be developed. If you disagree, we can agree to disagree - I'm not sure it would be a productive conversation.
You miss a fundamental difference.
"I believe that spending more on R&D will cause more drugs to be developed."
More != better.