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[Scoops Novel]

On the other hand, MetalSlimeHunt. In this instance, it's true, because this cure most likely can't be weaponized. Regardless, we don't exactly maintain technological parity at the moment.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

On the other hand, MetalSlimeHunt. In this instance, it's true, because this cure most likely can't be weaponized.

Novel, I don't mean this maliciously, but every post you make is confusing and doesn't convey any real message to me.

[Scoops Novel]

I do have a fondness for implication, i admit. Given the gap in living standards, including healthcare, between where the said elites torches and pitchforks area is and damn near everywhere else, it's not very hard to believe that it could grow worse, though there are likely limits.

[alway]

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50847212/ns/technology_and_science-the_new_york_times/#.USK4II2PV8E
So apparently the US is planning something along these lines as well. Though in this case, it's more like a Human Genome Project for the brain, in which they hope to decode brain activity rather than genes.

[Scoops Novel]

edit: and that first line was less then coherent, as was its reason. The problem arises when it stops being about demand and starts being about power which you're the one of the few comparatively easy brokers too. It can be benevolent, as there are some good reasons for certain countries to be unable to affect the power struggle, but it can also be otherwise, as is clear. Returning to cyberpunk feudalism is unlikely, however.

[Owlbread]

Demand causes cheapness.

Everyone is always on about how the future is going to have a technologically-enhanced elite and starving masses, but that isn't how these things work. Nobody wants to get Alzheimer's. Everyone is at risk of Alzheimer's. Thus, everyone will want to use the preventative measures. If everybody in the world buys your preventative measure, you can sell it for almost no individual profit and make more money than you would have if you sold it only to the rich for massive individual profit. And if you don't, someone else will.

Yet despite that right now there is essentially nothing people can do if the medication to slow things down doesn't work.

[MaximumZero]

Demand causes cheapness.

Everyone is always on about how the future is going to have a technologically-enhanced elite and starving masses, but that isn't how these things work. Nobody wants to get Alzheimer's. Everyone is at risk of Alzheimer's. Thus, everyone will want to use the preventative measures. If everybody in the world buys your preventative measure, you can sell it for almost no individual profit and make more money than you would have if you sold it only to the rich for massive individual profit. And if you don't, someone else will.

Yet despite that right now there is essentially nothing people can do if the medication to slow things down doesn't work.

Seriously, I'm not sure where MSH got his ideal from, but that's not the way it works in the real world. If you're uninsured and so much as get the flu, you're out $120 for a 10-pack of Tamiflu, which most people who aren't insured can't afford, in which case, you just have to suffer. If we could afford it, we would be insured, and the price goes down to about $0.25/pill. Demand actually drives up the price until people can't afford to buy it, in which case the price goes back down until people buy it again, in which case it finds an equilibrium of sorts. Nobody wants to get the flu. Everyone's at risk for it. However, if you can't afford the cure, you're fucked and everyone laughs at you. Same goes for any disease, really.

[10ebbor10]

A more logical statement would be that High Demand causes research/mass production which in turn can cause cheapness. There's a bottom limit though.

[MaximumZero]

A more logical statement would be that High Demand causes research/mass production which in turn can cause cheapness. There's a bottom limit though.

It can cause cheapness, but if some people are still willing to pay large quantities of money for something despite a large volume of both supply and demand, that price is going to win out.

[lemon10]

If the person or group that comes up with a cure gets a patent on it (either the method or the drug used or whatever), then prices will be set to maximize return, AKA it will probably be crazy expensive for most of the world because there won't be any competition.
If they don't get a patent or a group like a university gets it and doesn't enforce the patent, then the price will go down to be just over production costs (so it will probably be fairly cheap).

[PanH]

If I remember correctly, pharmaceutical patents are short lived. It's more the difficulty of creating it that is matter of the cost.

[i2amroy]

If I remember correctly, pharmaceutical patents are short lived. It's more the difficulty of creating it that is matter of the cost.

In the U.S. pharmaceutical patents last for 20 years, with the patent filing taking place before clinical trials begin (so most patents only last 8-12 years after the company begins to sell them to the masses). So yeah any Alzheimer's cure will be very expensive for the first 8-12 years, but after that it shouldn't take very long for the price to drop as a much larger number of companies begin producing it.

[Korbac]

Yeah, the main problem is the actually New Chemical Entity side of things, and once we've got that it can still take up to 14 years to get out into the public domain. Recent years have seen less novel 'drug candidate' compounds that the previous, but as Neurodegenerative Disorders almost become the new Cancer we'll see a lot of drugs companies trying things out I imagine.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Medigel has been defictionalized.

[Flying Dice]

Medigel has been defictionalized.

The future is now, and it continues to be the sort of future with lots of war. Oh, and medical applications not related to treating battlefield injuries blah blah blah. But in all seriousness that is awesome.