Abstract
There is a general consensus that market-based medical research has failed in some places, in particular, in diseases of the poor and in diseases that afflict very small numbers of people. With no profits to be made, there is no motivation for research. These are known as market failures. Advanced Market Commitments (AMCs) have been proposed as ways of coping with the former. Governments and other public agencies provide prize money and reward anyone who finds, say, a vaccine for pneumococcal disease. Similar government stimulus is called for to address the problems of so-called orphan diseases. These proposals will, if carried through, improve the current state of medical research and delivery, but they still far short on several key points. The problems are discussed and a proposal to socialize all medical research and remove intellectual property rights is explained and defended.
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Notes
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Europe has something similar. USFDA (Food and Drug Administration) and EMEA (European Medicines Agency) now agree on common product application, making it easier and quicker to market orphan drugs. However, drug approval is still distinct.
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Brown, J.R. (2011). Medical Market Failures and Their Remedy. In: Carrier, M., Nordmann, A. (eds) Science in the Context of Application. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 274. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9051-5_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9051-5_16
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