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Burgess comment about 'How Big Pharma is Killing Americans' (and others)

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Peter Burgess
[e-drug] 'How Big Pharma is Killing Americans' (and others) (3)
Peter Burgess
Sun, May 5, 2013 at 8:56 PM
Reply-To: Essential Drugs in English
To: Essential Drugs in English
E-DRUG: 'How Big Pharma is Killing Americans' (and others) (3)
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Dear Chris

You have identified a big issue ... but this big issue has been around for a very long time, and bog pharma has no intention of it ending any time soon.

You pose a number of good questions.

1) Should health care remain at the mercy of commercial imperatives?
Answer: NO

2) Should some form of price or profit regulation be applied in spite of the macro-economic free market principles in effect? Ironically big pharma conveniently resists these when it comes down to free and fair competition and negotiation.
Answer: MAYBE NOT

3) How can transparency in medicines pricing effectively be promoted or enforced so that real costs of development & promotion are revealed?
Answer: USE EXPERIENCED INVESTIGATORS TO CONNECT THE DOTS

4) How can a moral/ethical perspective be brought into play in pharmaceutical markets? Carrots and/or sticks?
Answer: THE ONLY DECISION MAKING METRICS IN PLAY ARE MONEY PROFIT AND STOCK PRICE IMPACT

5) How can introduction of single-payer social health insurance programmes be expedited?
Answer: THE WORD INSURANCE IN MEDICAL CARE PAYMENT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A SUBTERFUGE FOR PROFIT EXTRACTION BY FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARIES THAT ADD NOTHING TO HEALTH CARE.

You are asking questions about a very big issue. In my view there is a huge systemic problem that has been exploited for a very long time by investors and C-level executives ... a problem that business schools should have addressed but rather have chose to look the other way and go in another direction.

It is the conventional wisdom that big profits are needed to incentivize effective research and development, and therefore produced healthcare progress. My observations of business practice over many years suggests that this motivates investors, but does rather little for the scientists who actually do the work of research. The system has been hijacked by people who spin messages and distribute misinformation.

I think there will be a major change in the way society functions in the relatively near future. There is the possibility to use the ubiquitous mobile data platform (cell phone) to aggregate important data as well as merely socially interesting (but actually irrelevant) data. The 'rip-off' that is the norm in so many commercial activities will start to be get some push-back from society ... from potential customers. This will change commercial behavior. This will change political behavior. The power of lobbyists at the moment is at a historic high, but that is starting to change as elected officials start to get heat from ordinary people who are increasingly engaged with data that highlights commercial profit at the expense of social good.

My own effort in this space is something I call TrueValueMetrics. TVM is value accounting that not only takes into account the money flows that produce profit, but the value flows that are important for society ... the so called externalities. TVM is based on traditional accounting concepts but addresses the performance of both the organization and the place (community) where the economic activity takes place. At the moment all the value chains are optimized for the commercial investor ... under TVM the value chains can be more easily optimized for social impact. This is important as the new field of social investing becomes more commonplace ... something that needs to happen if the major issues on the planet are to get addressed in a meaningful way.

Peter Burgess
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Peter Burgess
TrueValueMetrics ... Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society
twitter: @truevaluemetric @peterbnyc
www.truevaluemetrics.org
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mobile: 212 744 6469
email: peterbnyc@gmail.com
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