Knowledge is not patentable. But technology is. And basically we cant participate much in the patent debate because we have nothing to patent anyway. 

Picture this, you develop something revolutionary,using knowledge to put together technology that is unique, effective and a killer idea. You have invested a lot of time and money. Then you leave your comp somewhere, some goon steals the entire concept, then you see it in the market the next day......

Patenting has its goods and its bads. But at the end of the day its VERY necessary. We want to copy and benefit from it when we have not done any thinking or research. Pharma is business, but guess what , so is everything else, from education to health and the somehow people need to be motivated to create,and money is the most common form of motivation. Patenting drives innovation when people know they can benefit from their exclusive efforts. If that was not in place, then things would be very interesting indeed. 

I do agree however( and the debates are there internationally) that the level to which we patent should be scrutinized. And inventing fire is not the same as inventing an iphone. Fire already existed. If you invent something that creates fire in a more efficient way than everyone else, then patent and sell it. Early pharmas didnt patent because they did not need to.Inventions were done as a matter of goodwill and hadnt become commercialized to the extent they are right now.



On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 11:44 AM, Jacob Odada <jacob.odada@gmail.com> wrote:

I grew up in a research institution and I can tell you for a fact that alot of money is not spent on research. Sales  people and marketers always make more money than researchers and you dont need to google it to know.
If the pharmaceutical companies spent so much on research how come Kenyan researchers are not rich? welcome trust is in Kenya, CDC is in Kenya, Smith kline,  Wlater reed is in Kenya plus many other organisations and they all do research here.
Go find out if they pay the researchers that much money compared to the knowledge they make use of.




On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
In a previous lifetime I happened to work for a biotechnology startup whose biz was to create an HIV vaccine (and other retroviruses like Ebola etc). The industry is BIG BUSINESS, with emphasis on *business*. The R&D budget included big chunks of money, in kind and in research facilities, from the government.

Among big pharmaceutical companies (big pharma), a lot more money is invested in marketing than in R&D, and an alarming number of drugs aren't new at all, just tweaks of existing drugs.

The myth of big pharma spending billions on research, hence the need to protect their legitimate investments by hook is crook is... just a myth.

Here's more info from Marcia Angell, a former Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious scientific journal, the New England Journal of Medicine. The article title: The Truth About the Drug Companies. She has written a lot more about the subject, more links are in the article.

While you're at it, you might also want to check out this related article on big pharma and H1N1: "Does the Vaccine Matter?"


It is quite distressing, in light of the article, to realize that Canada's vaccination effort has cost us $1.5 billion (that's a 'b'), and the bill is still climbing, expected to go beyond $2 billion. All this in the midst of an economic crisis.


So, put aside the myth of big pharma spending billions in research. A good chunk of that research is paid for by the government anyway, in the form of research grants to universities or directly to individual researchers.

Saidi

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 2:34 AM, Phares Kariuki <pkariuki@gmail.com> wrote:

You will be surprised then to learn many pharmaceutical concoctions were never patented (vaccines ..e.g. smallpox .. and antibiotics like pennicilin). The modern pharmaceutical industry exists on the basis of these non-patented inventions. How do you explain that ?

I agree, but how much money was invested? How much money has currently been invested in getting an HIV vaccine? With many of these drugs, millions of dollars at times billions are invested into medical research. Now sadly, when the drug is released, the pharmaceutical has to recover this income one way or another. When they factor that into the cost, many say it's immoral and insist on generics, however, this in the long term reduces the pharmaceutical industry's need to seek a cure for say Cancer/AIDS as they know that someone will be allowed to produce a generic drug and they will loose several (b)millions in research.

I was once speaking to a pharmaceutical researcher whose view was basically that the reason more and more pharmaceutical firms are going to the outer limits of research (v14gr4 <spammer pun intended>, steroids etc) is simply because  no one will make generics and the few who do will be sued. These are drugs with high demand yet not critical, no one can say they will die if they don't get their little blue pill, the converse is probably true.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to see clearer rational for patents *Game Theory At Work - How To Use Game Theory To Outthink And Outmaneuver Your Competition, by James Miller*



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Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.As we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.
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