User:Mpykosz
From Cyberlaw
This is my first time posting on the Wiki, so I hope I am doing it correctly. One thought I have had rattling around in my head for the past couple weeks was a comment about T. Forcht Dagi and the number of hats he wears. It seemed to be implied that it might not be beneficial to have a person involved in so many different aspects of biotechnology. I actually think I feel the opposite. A person like Dr. Dagi, who has done so many impressive things in his career will be able to look at the issues from many different perspectives and therefore be able to see how each aspect of biotechnology is effected. For example, as a businessman Dr. Dagi can see how important it is to make money for investors and increase stock prices for shareholders, but as a doctor he knows how important it is to make effective medicines that are available to all patients. There of course going to have to be compromises between these various concerns, but a person with Dr. Dagi's experiences can effectively analyze a situation to come up with the most beneficial compromise for all sides.
Along the same lines, I think that claims of conflicts of interest may be somewhat over blown. For example, even though around half of the scientists on government committees have conflicts of interest, this is to be expected, since it is obvious that top scientists are going to be recruited heavily by drug companies, and are going to be very tempted to take money from them, whether it be for research purposes or for as a boost for their income. However, the top scientists are also the same people the government wants to serve on advisory committees, so for these reasons it should be expected that many of them have conflicts of interests. There are of course problems with COIs that we discussed in class, but these occur in a relatively small amount of cases compared with the number of studies and academic papers that are published. It would seem that if this is a large problem it would also be simple to solve by passing a rule that forbids drug companies to block publication of negative data.
Thought about the simulation:
I was talking to our classes resident doctor after we did the simulation, and he told me that a course of chemotherapy usually costs about $30,000, so in reality, even though two courses of our drug would be record breaking in price, it was really not that much more than the market price, and if it worked as well as advertised, would not be overpriced at all. Throughout the simulation we talked of the price as if it was outrageously expensive, but in reality it is expensive, but not overly so. I think this actually makes the simulation even more pertinent, because it is really not just one outlier we are talking about, but this discussion could be applied to many actual drugs.
Just some thoughts from me on the first couple of classes.
66.31.42.166 17:55, 22 February 2006 (EST)
A thought I had about the negotiation exercise last class:
It seems to me like the relative strength of each parties negotiation positions was not emphasised enough. I took a class over winter term on the venture capital and private equity industries, and in that class it was emphasised over and over again that the terms of the agreement will mirror the negotiating strenghs of the parties. For example, if a scientist has an idea to develop a drug, but has no experience in the feild, chances are that he will have little bargaining power, and have to accept whatever deal the VC profesional offers in order to procure funds. Like Dr. Dagi said earlier, his company will look at 1,000 different possible drugs and only choose one to fund. That means they also have a lot of bargaining power when they are contracting to find money.
On the other hand, if I scientist has a proven track record of developing succesful drugs, chances are there will be many sources of funds and the scientist will be able to dictate favorable terms. This will also apply to a University negotiating for their professors as well. I think the terms of the deal will reflect the relative bargaining powers of the parties. All the sources of money are going to want to have more control, and vice versa for the scientists. Who actually has the most control and concessions will reflect their bargaining positions.
Mpykosz 12:51, 13 March 2006 (EST)
