Please, read first this posting from Charles Hugh Smith of Of Two Minds Blog Blog Post.
If you have no doubts that the whole system with Big Pharma and FDA is in its current form the paragon of honest capitalism, let me tell you that when you win these kinds of money certain things happen to your brain reward center, it is just like being on cocaine. Have you ever seen sharks congregating and getting into feeding frenzy – now there you go!
I remember when during Clinton times there was discussion ( disingenuous ) of the CEO compensation and finally a system was born where the named was connected to the price of the stock through mechanism of stock options. The price can be manipulated by stock buybacks and accounting manuevers on paper. Then add the dose of lower capital gain taxes to spice up the lives of the corporate deciders. So was created system rewarding people for not honest work in capitalism risk-reward machine but flight on the edges of the envelope of law, accounting and credibility to bag windfall compensation as long as it lasts. I guess the system never was the former ever but now there is no question of its moral hazard. I bet that that participants are aware that this opportunity can never happen twice. Ethics of capitalism be damned!
The corner offices in Big Pharma have lived through all those manipulations and used them to the hilt. Now, they are exploring the final frontier that is rising the prices beyond the reasonable on the premiss that next compensation package must be ever greater. The participants abandon all restraint and work towards its logical conclusion by exposing themselves as the ones only benefiting here. One can’t say any more that we get hell lot of a deal with these new drugs and that the costs of bringing it to market through the regulatory and funding maze is indeed staggering so that the exorbitant prices are justified. They are in effect strip mining the system and hastening its demise.
Sorry to go off on a tangent, It is very hard to reform system where the old rewards are still left in place. FDA is kind of very meticulous with ANAVEX 2-73. I am very grateful to Australian Government for thinking along the lines of benefits to its people. The change in emphasis again from Rett to Alzheimer tells us a lot. The start of testing ANAVEX 2-73 on Parkinson’s in Europe seems to seal my conviction on the “unresolved issues with FDA”.
When I arrived in UIC in 1980 I spied the local student life with curiosity of a cat and noticed two kinds of books most prevalent on campus; Plato or Clausewitz. The guys in liberal arts learned about possible existence of a better world whose corrupt version they were living now (Plato) but the business students learned about the “fog of war” where no plan survives for long and where dog eats dog. Will we soon see those two mindsets rioting in the streets since nowadays nobody wants to think or advance arguments for or against anything?
There is something admirable in Germans, and Dr Missling is the best German I know so for time being count your blessings. Ask me, he can keep his hair!
