More Reasons to Hate Drug Companies

Ezra has the goods:

The federal government funds 36% of all U.S medical research. In fact, of the 21 most important drugs introduced between 1965 and 1992, 15 were developed using taxpayer research. A study done in 1990 looked at 32 drugs on the market and found that 60% wouldn't have been created without federally funded research.

So what we're seeing here are dual subsidies. When the NIH discovers a drug, as they did with the cancer drug Taxol, they license it to drug companies at an absurdly low cost. Bristol-Meyers Squibb is currently the proud owner of Taxol, they sell it for $20,000 when it only costs $1,000 to manufacture, and the NIH gets .5% of the royalties. So taxpayer research ends up enriching the drug companies. And then, because without shame you can do thing likes this, the drug companies demand that we don't switch to a Canadian system of bargaining in order to get lower prices. So we don't, and we keep getting robbed while Canada and all other countries with sane health care systems by their drugs for a fraction of our price. Brilliant.

This is exactly what the "free-marketers" fail to ever mention. While Big Pharma is out there spending millions upon millions researching and marketing and marketing and marketing boner pills, you and I are doing the heavy lifting for drugs that matter. And our reward, unaffordable medicine. Our health care system is broken. Period.