NE1: The Medical research act

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It is a fact that in our region and across the world pharmeceutical companies spend billions upon billions on marketing and lobbying, while neglecting actual research. A particularily current example of this is the complete lack of funding for alzheimers research. This bill aims to make it impossible for companies to spend almost nothing on research, while fleecing taxpayers by designing fancy packets and gifting doctors items, by removing their revenue source if they are all style and no substance.

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Firstly, thank you for all of your comments- its good to see representatives (past present and future) actually having a debate. Also I'm glad to see almost everybody sees this as a serious problem- even if they may disagree with my means.

It is my understanding, under the New Atlasian Healthcare Act, that our region is obliged to pay for workers drugs etc. Therefore, surely our region decides which drugs to buy, so it does not have to be a federal thing. Also, as at our last budget we spent 20 billion on healthcare, so we are not chump change which drug companies can choose to ignore.

However, I am, of course willing to modify the bill if it will enable its passage. One suggestion is instead of the 70% R and D requirement (which was really just a starting point) perhaps a marketing cap (so no more than x% can be spent on marketing- I'd suggest 10, but that's just a starting point) on total expenditure. Also I am aware the law is a little heavy handed, and so I could support a voluntary arrangement at first, as long as there would be a change if that didn't work.

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Yes that's friendly.

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The Medical research act

1. All drug companies have to be registered with the Northeastern Government to be allowed to sell  their products.
2. Once a fiscal year, the Northeastern Government shall review all registered drug companies and assess the percentage of the annual profit invested into approved research and development areas.
3.The decision on which areas are approved shall be taken by a five person board of medical professionals, appointed by the Northeastern governor.
3. If the percentage referenced in Section 2 is below ¹/₃ of annual revenue then the company shall be placed on a six month "probationary" period.  During this period, the company may spend only a maximum of 15% on marketing drugs or related costs.
4. At the end of the probationary period, the government shall hold another review of the company's half-year revenue and investments and assess if the company has increased its research and development funding to the level specified in Section 2.  If the company has met the request level, it's probationary period shall end, if it has not, a new probationary period will be instituted.
5. The legislation shall come into effect July 1, 2013.


This amendment is friendly, but I'd like to add another amendment as well, to stop all of the mandatory research and development being focused on 'me too' drugs, instead of actually useful ones.

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Sorry, had to fix an unintentional grammatical error.  Oh, and fix the numbering!

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Do I have to say this is friendly? because if so, it is.

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I remain skeptical that the oversight that this bill calls for is necessary, and the requirements that it will impose on pharmaceutical companies seem rather burdensome and intrusive. I cannot offer this legislation my signature unless I see a stronger case.

Here is why I think this bill is necessary:

Around the world, today we are (or will soon be) suffering a drugs crisis. I'm sure we all know that bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, this is not only a medical danger, but according to the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics in america we spend between 17 and 26 billion dollars a year because of antibiotic resistance. Now we could try and use the old drugs but sparingly, yet in many ways the cat is already out of the bag. In the long term we need to develop more drugs, yet the actual opposite is happening:
 

And its not just antibiotics that are affected by less research, all kinds of diseases are not stopped or slowed down because we don't do enough research.

I hope that through out my term so far as an assemblyman I've shown myself to be reasonable, I have never been wedded to one particular idea because I believe the state or business is inherently "good", and believe me if research was going well and new breakthroughs were being made I would be happy to support the status quo. But as of now research spending is falling, while profits are going up: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/26/pharmaceuticals-rd-idUSL6E7HO1BL20110626
 I think its vital that we do something to arrest this decline.

Having said all that I am willing to make amendments to the bill, such as increasing the probationary period to a year so companies don't have to collect anymore data etc.

[bore]

Aye