Shkrelii is at it again - Chagas Disease this time

[Sprout]

Article.

As if he hasn't indirectly caused the death of enough people already, the vile pseudo-human/Bond villain has revealed plans to sell the voucher to manufacture benznidazole exclusively in the U.S. allowing a 10,000% mark-up on the current price of a medication that saves the lives of millions, many of whom are poor.

 

[BecomingJulie]

Maybe this will force the USA to examine and overhaul their broken patent system.

The original idea behind patents, in case anyone has forgotten, was to encourage innovation by ensuring that inventors could turn a profit from their work, by giving them temporary exclusivity over it in order to recoup the costs of development in return for a promise that it would eventually be given to The World At Large. It was meant to benefit the small players, by protecting them from faceless corporations who otherwise would exploit their creativity without offering a fair reward. Now that the system appears to be benefitting the sharks at the expense of the minnows, it is obviously not serving its original intended purpose.

I think it's also fair, in the course of rethinking the system, to ask the question, "Is offering temporary exclusive control over an invention still necessarily the best way of achieving the goal of encouraging invention?"

 

[consumer]

As someone that works in the medical field i have to say that this guy is the scum of the earth. I hope karma gives him a good slapping!

 

[masaz]

As someone that doesn't work in the medical field, I have to say I think he's a massive greasy bellend also

 

[Jackal]

He just got nicked for securities fraud over a five year period.

Not terribly smug looking at the moment.

 

[Don Luigi]

Bloody lawyers should increase their fee by 5000%.

I don't actually believe that. I believe in due process for all.

 

[Kittycat5]

What a scumbag. Julie, what alternative do you propose to the current patent system. Big pharma is as ruthless and dirty as the mob in some practices, but like it or not, they are the ones with the means to bring new medicines to the world. I do believe protecting their products via patent is a necessary evil but could support shortening the length of patents or even better not patening the end product, rather the procedure in which it is produced. Different synth, new patent as long as the end product is bioequivalent.

 

[SquidInSunglasses]

FBI says they didn't manage to secure to secure the Wu-Tang clan album in their raid, so I am sincerely hoping Bill Murray will take up this oppurtunity to claim it back from that waste of human flesh.