[h2o-discuss] Re: "Eric Raymond: Another interesting essay"

["Robert S. Thau" <rst@ai.mit.edu>]

Tuyet A. Tran writes:
 > This is just a general question pertaining to the
 > free-source on another subject, medical research. Some
 > of the successful drug treatments for a variety of
 > immunosuppressed diseases derived from the results of
 > 'free' research projects done by students and
 > scientists.  

As I mentioned at the meeting a few weeks ago, the drug business has a
significantly different cost structure than the software business (or
at least the commodity portions of it which seem most fertile ground
for open source efforts at this point), in the phenomenal cost of
bringing a product to market through all the various clinical and FDA
trials.  This has had the effect of promising treatments *not* being
brought to market solely because, for whatever reason, they are not
patentable. 

(I understand that some have argued the pharmeceutical industry is
abusing its monopolies to reap windfall profits which go well beyond
recouping the cost of their R&D --- a matter on which I personally
have no informed opinion, but the dispute exists.  Regardless, it is 
reality that the R&D costs even once a promising drug has been
identified are substantial, and that once you've got a drug through
this process, the cost of producing and distributing it is often
trivial by comparison; I'm not aware of any mechanism currently
available to the pharm companies *other* than temporary monopolies
granted via patent which would allow them to recover the cost of their
R&D). 

rst