(Untitled)

[grandwazooo]

I hope I have this wrong:

I give money to a cancer research charity. they perform research in to cancer. They write papers.
BigPharm Plc. reads the paper, develops a treatment, sells me the treatment(or not depending on my healthcare situation).
BigPharm Plc gets rich while I pay for their research and their drugs.

what am I missing?

Comments

[perplexetic]

I don't know but if that's the situation, then the reason to give is still valid. You may be paying for their research, but that research led to the treatment which wouldn't have happened otherwise.

[grandwazooo]

wouldn't it be better to simply give a cheque to BigPharm Plc and save the costs of the charity?

[wherearethebees]

Yeah, you could just buy stock in Pharma if you want your cancer treatments to be 17 times synthesized from something that was originally supposed to make your eyelashes grow and happens to sort of stop the spread of cancer cells while also turning you a gentle violet shade. But don't worry, they have a drug to reshade you, too. It makes your hair fall out but thank god, then you can go back to that original product. Sweet suite!

[grandwazooo]

is it not in Pharma's best interest to develop the most effective drug to maintain its commercial advantage and justify the big ticket price?

[coritiacus]

The part where developing the treatment costs a lot of money.

[grandwazooo]

which is easily recouped by the cost of the treatment to the end user.

[coritiacus]

Which is putting the cart before the horse. Granted most pharmaceutical companies are not new start-ups with no capital, but drug development is a gamble. Pharmaceutical companies undoubtably charge too much for the finished article, but if they weren't getting anything out of it they wouldn't bother to develop the drugs in the first place, since they're making a mint out of the ones they already have.

[grandwazooo]

patents expire so they need to keep adding to the new lest their entire business vanishes overnight

[wherearethebees]

"Develops a treament" = scads more research, development, testing, etc = big bucks. You paid charity researchers to explore and theorize. Pharma (helped by previous Pharma customers) pays itself to develop, and then you pay Pharma obscene $$ to use the product.

[grandwazooo]

it was that thought that made me ask the question

[velvetunicorn]

Most research based charities will have sponsorship from pharmas that is desperately needed. I don't think it's fair to rule out charities that receive money from them. It's very difficult to run an organization and fund research without sponsorship money and it's not as easy to get as some people would think.

[velvetunicorn]

I work for a non profit that funds research and we fund researchers that are typically in universities or hospitals. Big Pharmas typically hire their own researchers. Of course, any info that comes from this research is helpful in the end.

I would check into the charity's annual report as they should be listing all the research they fund if that's their mission. If you can't find that info on line, I would be cautious. You are also able to call these charities and ask for a list of funded researchers. They should be able to provide it for you upon request.