July 05, 2015
Philosophers have debated the nature of knowledge for millenniums, but it turns out that the Washington Post has the secret. In a mostly useful article on the high and rising prices of prescription drugs it told readers:
“Patents are necessary to encourage companies to innovate, but they also slow the progress of cheaper generic versions of drugs to market, and allow drug companies to charge much more in the interim than they could if they had more competition.”
Hmm, patents are necessary to encourage companies to innovate? There is no other mechanism? Do U.S. defense contractors innovate? They may get patents, but they are mostly paid on contract. If there is a reason that people will refuse to innovate for money, but will only innovate with the incentive of a patent monopoly, it would be interesting to know what it is.
As a practical matter, patents are an incredibly inefficient mechanism for financing drug research for reasons mentioned in this article and others. If the research costs were paid upfront all of these amazing new drugs would be cheap to patients and we would not have to waste time fighting over who would pay the tab. (At the point the drug has been developed, the costs have already been paid. Why not make the drug available at the marginal cost? That is the economist’s approach.)
Paying for research upfront would also have the advantage that all the findings would be in the public domain. This means that doctors would be better informed about which drug might be best for their patients. It would also mean that money would not be wasted pursuing paths that had already been shown to be dead ends. In addition, since no one is getting huge patent rents from having people use their drugs, upfront funding would take away the incentive to deceive the public about the safety and effectiveness of drugs, which has led to so much needless suffering.
Rather than trying to tell people that we need patents to finance research, a lengthy piece like this could at least have noted that many economists, such as Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz, have argued for more efficient alternatives to the patent system. This is exactly the sort of article where this issue should be raised.
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