Readers React: Good healthcare requires risk-taking by private drug companies

To the editor: It is nonsense to imply that the federal government pays for most research to develop new drugs. (“How taxpayers prop up Big Pharma, and how to cap that,” Opinion, Oct. 27)

The National Institutes of Health does not do that, nor does it claim to. Should it do that for a drug, the NIH can and should patent it as current law allows.

Far more damaging to our health are those driven by ideology, with such animosity for private business that they would prefer patients suffer and die rather than allow any business anywhere to obtain a return on the investment needed to develop new drugs.

We and patients across the world would benefit from more such investment, not less.

Richard E. Ralston, Newport Beach

The writer is executive director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.

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To the editor: Mariana Mazzucato eloquently describes how American taxpayers fund research that benefits big pharmaceutical companies. In turn, Big Pharma gouges taxpayers by overcharging for drugs developed with government help.

In other words, we pay twice, and the second time through the nose.

Mazzucato’s prescription is to cap the price of drugs produced with taxpayer help. I would add a few other things.

First, cap the patent length of new drugs at five years once they hit the market, and allow the U.S. government to produce the drugs that it creates through research. That would be a true free-market system, one in which everyone gets a shot — even taxpayers.

Richard Parr, Santa Monica