Monday, January 24, 2011

Politician, heal thyself

Big Government has a weird, love/hate relationship with Big Pharma.

On the one hand, the FDA drags its feet and makes the drug approval process expensive and interminable, while the costs of prescription medicines were constantly targeted in the Health Insurance Extension & Expansion debates.

On the other hand, Big G is so concerned about the lack of new drugs, that they are setting up a "a billion-dollar government drug development center to help create medicines."


We are told that:

"The new effort comes as many large drug makers, unable to find enough new drugs, are paring back research. Promising discoveries in illnesses like depression and Parkinson’s that once would have led to clinical trials are instead going unexplored because companies have neither the will nor the resources to undertake the effort."

Ummm, this is willfully obtuse, even for the NY Times.

Isn't it more likely that Big Pharma is doing a cost benefit analysis and sees the costs going up and the benefits going down?

Isn't it likely that Big Government has caused a substantial part of the problem they are now looking to solve?

Of course a billion dollars is chump change in the prescription drug R&D market but never fear:


The initial financing of the government’s new drug center is relatively small....but officials hope that the prospect of finding new drugs will lure Congress into increasing the center’s financing well beyond $1 billion.


I can tell you one thing, people. I'd like to get some of whatever drugs were behind this great idea.


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