Pharma is a special case. Can we separate IP into pharma and -other- and deal with them separately?
Pharma "development" might be done by academics who get bought out by big pharma after their discovery, or it might be done originally by big pharma. Should pharma IP be protected so they can inflate prices to pad the bank accounts of the inventors even though they were operating in academia at the time of invention?
Pharma costs involve (a) cost to discover a drug, (b) cost to do drug trials, including all bureaucratic red tape in getting the drug approved, and (c) advertising and marketing (both to prospective patients and to the medical establishment). From what I've read, advertising costs exceed R&D. Surely, IP monopoly pricing should not be able to pass along arbitrary marketing costs.
Some drugs are prescribed for serious health problems, some drugs are prescribed and taken on a more voluntary basis, and there's a gray area in between. Should IP owners be able to set arbitrary profit margins for drugs for more serious health problems? Who decides what's serious?
The incentives for much of the pharma industry are all wrong: they market to doctors and potential end-users, even though end users are rarely capable of evaluating drugs, and even though doctors are influenced by marketing directed at them. This isn't so much a cost issue (other than advertising costs, above) but rather a public health issue. Some drugs might not be in the public's interest at all, even while being recommended by doctors, and paid for at inflated prices by patients and insurance companies.
There are so many complications, I'm in favor of dealing with pharma IP separately.
I agree with you generally, but why is it a special case? As you said,tThe problem isn't the cost to deliver a drug. There are over 100k "potentially useful" new chemicals synthesized by university labs every year. One or two are brought to market.
The cost is in the red tape, and doing the clinical trials to satisfy regulations. I agree, we'd have to get rid of that.
But treating it as a special case ensures that we'll just put off the subject indefinitely.
IP corrupts everything it touches. Get rid of it, and we'll eliminate the problem at the source.
You only addressed part of the problem. The OP said IP.. so we're talking about trademarks in addition to patents.
The pharma companies would lose the ability to patent a drug.. which means they would keep it a tradesecret instead. So generic may or may not be able to be produced.
Second: without trademarks, pharma companies could invent Prilosec... and I (and anyone else) could sell a sugar pill named Prilosec. Or rat poison named Prilosec.. or any number of other items named Prilosec.
People would still be free to use and purchase based on the generic chemical name.
Furthermore, I would consider tradesecrets a form of IP so, if we are considering a scenario in which IP were abolished, tradesecrets would be abolished too in the sense that they would be afforded no legal protections. True, a formula or process could still be kept secret, but without protection for that secrecy it seems unlikely that real innovations would remain secret for long and market competition would increase as a result.
Pharma "development" might be done by academics who get bought out by big pharma after their discovery, or it might be done originally by big pharma. Should pharma IP be protected so they can inflate prices to pad the bank accounts of the inventors even though they were operating in academia at the time of invention?
Pharma costs involve (a) cost to discover a drug, (b) cost to do drug trials, including all bureaucratic red tape in getting the drug approved, and (c) advertising and marketing (both to prospective patients and to the medical establishment). From what I've read, advertising costs exceed R&D. Surely, IP monopoly pricing should not be able to pass along arbitrary marketing costs.
Some drugs are prescribed for serious health problems, some drugs are prescribed and taken on a more voluntary basis, and there's a gray area in between. Should IP owners be able to set arbitrary profit margins for drugs for more serious health problems? Who decides what's serious?
The incentives for much of the pharma industry are all wrong: they market to doctors and potential end-users, even though end users are rarely capable of evaluating drugs, and even though doctors are influenced by marketing directed at them. This isn't so much a cost issue (other than advertising costs, above) but rather a public health issue. Some drugs might not be in the public's interest at all, even while being recommended by doctors, and paid for at inflated prices by patients and insurance companies.
There are so many complications, I'm in favor of dealing with pharma IP separately.