I think you're seriously underestimating the incredible financial incentive to cure cancer. You're talking "Every shareholder triples his money" type of financial incentive.
---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 01:46 AM ----------
Yeah... Spectral hit the nail right on the head.
Explain to me how is this stupid?
Because it's sad that a pharmaceutical company would rather make huge profits instead of helping people.
I think someone else mentioned it on here already but it's an opportunity cost, they aren't losing any money...they just want to make more. But I honestly don't know shit about that so I won't speak too much on it.
Because it requires a belief that there's thousands of scientists clamming up about a "cure" that they could present to the public if they so desired. If someone was sitting on such a thing, it'd be disseminated in very short order; thinking otherwise belies a thorough ignorance of the research world.
Do you expect to be paid for whatever work it is you do?
Money is, by definition, a fungible asset. There's absolutely no difference between an opportunity cost and an out of pocket expense.
There is however a pretty real difference between an opportunity cost and operating at a loss.Money is, by definition, a fungible asset. There's absolutely no difference between an opportunity cost and an out of pocket expense.
Explain how there is no money in cures.
The 'instead' is wrong. The point of any corporation is to make huge profits, it's not to help people. The point of pharma product is to help people. It does not make any sense that the huge profits are not the result of helping people. If their drugs didn't help people, there would be no huge profit.
---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 02:15 AM ----------
Perception...
It was me explaining opportunity cost.
If Pfizer doesn't find a "cure for cancer" another pharma company like AstraZenica will. There's absolutely nothing to be gained by NOT curing cancer (Even though that's a medical impossibility* to have a single cure for all cancers)
*While not technically "impossible" it is, nonetheless highly improbable due to cancer being a label attached to HUNDREDS of different diseases with an even greater number of causes.
---------- Post added 2012-11-20 at 02:18 AM ----------
No one suggested they were operating at a loss.
You see, the world is far more advanced *because* people are making profit on things. If people didn't make money, they wouldn't pay taxes for the roads you use or the healthcare that you receive.
Here's the simpliest and most obvious example possible.
Remember about 20 years ago when the internet was used by hardly anyone? The universities and forums didn't make it profitable and drive the huge usage. It was Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, news websites, etc. The companies that did it for the money. Capitalism is what made western society into the power house that it is. They're the ones on the cutting edge of technology, the ones that make the drugs, the ones that make the medical equipment that goes into hospitals etc.
Society as a whole advances because they make money and reinvest it. If they didn't, we'd be stuck in tribes in Africa, still trying to work out how to create fire. Cancer wouldn't be a worry then because we'd be dead by 30.
People can perceive things a certain way, but if they're reasonable, they're change that perception when the facts are explained to them. From a business perspective, there's just not any practical difference between an opportunity cost and an expense; the only thing leading to the conclusion that they should stay the course if it costs them money is status quo bias.
You said losing money on the production. That more than clearly implies that they're not making a profit.
Listen, you said losing money on the production. Which means that they would have to not be able to make a profit producing the drug. They can make a profit producing the drug. Is there an opportunity cost? Sure, but that has nothing to do with their ability to be financially viable producing the cheaper drug.