Much of this could be done by eliminating the FDA's revolving door which puts Pharmaceutical executives on the FDA board. If we're going to maintain an FDA at all (and I think there are solid arguments for its dissolution - namely a lack of express Constitutional Authority), I think that all board members should have to be approved by Congressional vote just like the board of the FCC.

But if Big Pharma puts out drugs that actually cure diseases, then it's a one-time deal: why would you need to keep taking drugs, if the disease is gone?
That would adversely affect Big Pharma's rent-seeking business model.

I ask myself: Should the Pharma Industry have a fiduciary responsibility to the people their drugs affect?
Doesn't the current patent model encourage inventors to ignore that responsibility to their patients?

The current model exists because of government protection of big Pharma from the 'greed' of others,
yet it encourages Big Pharma to place their 'greed' over the health of their patients.
Again government has created the problem by bad law.

Here's what Big Pharma does with their political power in the existing model:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/big-pha...
Big Pharma Wants to Put an End to Vitamins and Supplements

This is another example of Big Pharma using government to protect them from competition
at the expense of the health of their patients.

The (corrupt) American government is being used by Big Pharma against the People
that government is supposed to serve.
CMBurton is correct in this respect:
Corporations "are not individuals and are not entitled to the same rights as individuals."
In fact, Big Pharma corporations are being given rights greater than the rights of the
People that government was created to protect.

That’s the problem with any pure philosophy. When you start factoring in the human element, it starts to fall apart. In an ideal world, companies would care enough about the people they employ and their customers to see that what is good for them is good for the company. Curing diseases won’t put you out of business. There will always be more to cure. And it will build your reputation, which is always good for business. But so many people don’t care how their actions effect others. Making a profit off temporary symptom relief is easier and cheaper than actually trying to cure anything. Hence the opioid epidemic we’re living with now. Greed is not good because it serves the greedy person at the expense of others. Even Rand who supported laissez faire capitalism understood that some governmental regulation was necessary to protect us from each other. I can’t remember who said that government who governs least governs best (or the other way around?) but they knew what they were talking about. If we could all be trusted to do what’s right, we wouldn’t need governments at all.

I think we made a huge mistake when we began to think of corporations as people. They are not individuals and are not entitled to the same rights as individuals. They should not be allowed to contribute financially to candidates for office. Medicine wasn’t always seen as a for-profit system and it shouldn’t be. The ideal of “first do no harm” should be more than aspirational. It should be a standard they are held to.

The industry definitely needs to be given an incentive to switch from a monthly bottle-filling money machine to a Cure model. It is untold how many diseases are curable when we only focus on symptom treatment, which generates good profit. So many diseases we just can't get a handle on, but then the Government-Pharmaceutical-American Medical Association complex has the whole industry tied up in the symptom treatment paradigm. It's a love triangle that is hard to break.

Pharma will take a drug molecule which treats some symptoms fairly well, and then move a methyl group on the 4 position of a ring to the 5 position of the ring. Why? New molecule, new patent. Slightly different side-effect profile, efficacy more or less the same. They keep the product pipeline full of "new" drugs so that every two years another drug hits the market. All of that time and money spent could have been spent on truly novel cures or treatments.

I don't hate Pharma corporations for earning money and offering a valuable service. However they do view human beings as nothing but a pink tube with a wallet to steal. Tablets in, money out. Fill the bottle again. Repeat. Stuff the profits into the next analogue of the same damn drug.

I suppose regulations and tax structures put in place by Con-gress to encourage innovation and reduce wasteful copies of the same drug might help. But I see Danneger setting his oil wells on fire. (coal mines?) They have the medicines that we need to live. They are basically saying, pay or die. Which is their right in a free system, cruel as it is. I feel like a Democrat saying that we must regulate their business model. I can see Pharma saying "FU, no drugs for you, let's go to India or France or wherever. The government is squeezing us to be better corporate citizens so let's just bug out of here."

What kind of society are we if we pass laws, or directives haha, that you can't leave? You will produce cures, or you will go to jail. Are we just talking about human greed? Is greed good? Does greed fit into an Objectivist Capitalist model? For sure, if people said, I will do the right thing and the kind thing, instead of the thing that makes me the most profitable, then life would be much better. Share a little. Put your quest for more profits aside and think about your fellow people. But now I sound like a Democrat!!!

Responsibility absolutely. The ideal of health insurance is that we all enter a social contract to create a pool of money so that if an accident or disease happens we accept that anyone will be covered. It is an irresponsible insult to sit on the couch and eat pints of ice cream for years causing cardiovascular disease and then expect everyone who chipped in to the pool to cover that person's quadruple bypass. If you freely choose to smoke cigarettes and cause yourself lung cancer, (sorry John Galt) why the hell should anyone else in your insurance pool pay for your freely made self-destructive choice?

Cures to disease are obviously better than symptom relievers. The symptom relievers are keys to unlocking why the condition exists and are a baby step toward a cure.

A Dr. Hendricks will arise, but realize that his technology should only be traded amongst Gulchers.

A big part of solving this is by manufacturing organ-on-a-chip devices.

How do you propose achieving step one?

But can you see that the result of that policy is a financial incentive to never cure anything?
How would you encourage the industry to research cures instead of symptom amelioration that enslaves the customer forever?
The medical care system in its present form does not deliver better care; it delivers never ending high costs and never ending sickness.

if a cure is possible, that is what should be provided

if a cure is not possible, then you view has some validity

if a cure may be possible, then treating symptoms is also valid until such time as a cure is possible

the goal is that medicine should not just be another form of cosmetics, just keep buying that wrinkle cream....

I know how to cut pharma costs and tissue engineering development costs. That is part of my R&D.

Eliminate the looters is step one.

I fundamentally disagree with the premise of this thread. It takes R&D to develop symptom ameliorization drugs, too. If this became the norm, I would shrug from the Gulch.

👍 Definitely. The structure of the delivery system has to change for that to happen in large numbers, imo.

people need to take MORE responsibility for their own care and costs