Very interesting article in the Guardian today about alternative economic models for developing medicine.
Drug companies usually fall back on the 'drugs cost a lot to develop' excuse, but apparently - "Only about 10% of the price of a drug goes to pay for research on new products, and three-quarters of new drugs have no significant therapeutic benefit over existing treatments, implying that perhaps only 2-3% of the money collected from drug sales is spent on developing medicines better than the ones we already have."
"Supporting the existing policy direction for drugs is indefensible, especially after the November 2001 Doha declaration of the WTO that health was more important than intellectual property." - indeed.
Particularly interesting for me is the mention of Open Source software development methods as an example of how things could be done in medecine development.