Vaccine development needs new incentives (with Tahir Amin)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

COVID-19 has exposed the limits of the pharmaceutical market model. This week, patent law expert Tahir Amin joins the show to explain why vaccine development needs new incentives. Tahir Amin is an attorney dedicated to reshaping patent law to better serve the public. He is the Co-Founder and Co-ED of the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK), a global nonprofit organization of attorneys, scientists, and health experts working on systemic changes to intellectual property and the political economy of pharmaceutical innovation. Twitter: @realtahiramin Further reading: Covid-19 has exposed the limits of the pharmaceutical market model: https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/19/covid-19-exposed-limits-drug-development-model/ No vaccine in sight: https://newrepublic.com/article/157594/no-coronavirus-vaccine-big-pharma-drug-patent-system Democrats punt on drug-pricing overhaul in virus relief measure: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/democrats-punt-on-drug-pricing-overhaul-in-virus-relief-measure Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Really obvious that in a completely profit-driven market, investments in
0:06.8	pandemics and preparedness that just it doesn't pay. The neoliberal
0:10.8	ideology is that basically the markets govern, profit is best, and I think we've seen in this instance that entire sort of theory being heavily questioned.
0:19.3	Big Farm has gotten really good at gaming the system and as a consequence we're in this moment
0:24.1	where we do not have what we need to be able to get out of it.
0:31.6	From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics with
0:38.3	Nick Hanauer, a pointed conversation about who gets what and why, with one of America's most provocative
0:44.9	capitalists. I'm Nick Henauer, founder of Civic Ventures. I'm Jessen Farrell and I'm Senior Vice President at Civic Ventures and a former state
0:56.1	legislator.
0:59.2	So Jessen today we're going to explore one of the best examples of neoliberal overreach, which is Big Pharma,
1:09.9	and in particular explore the sort of past and present of big pharma in the context of the
1:18.7	COVID crisis and the pandemic.
1:21.6	You know the challenge of course is that a lot of the and the
1:25.0	crisis,
1:30.0	COVID crisis, you know, the challenge of course is that a lot of the things that we need today
1:28.0	to address the COVID crisis
1:32.0	weren't things that the pharma industry felt were profitable to explore
1:37.9	a research prior to it coming along.
1:40.9	Botox, yes. Biaagra? Yes.
1:44.0	Yeah, exactly.
1:47.0	Vaccines, not so much.
1:49.0	Or, you know, antivirals, not so much.
	...

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