Spoke to some folks at Edwards HQ on their proposal for prize money as a spur for pharmaceutical development. This was muddled in their fact sheet and much of the initial reporting, but this program is not, in any way, a replacement for the current system of patents. It does not, in any way, change the way patents are awarded, or how long they last, or who can apply for them. Rather, it creates a separate and parallel track, a pilot program of sorts, wherein a committee would identify diseases and conditions that would benefit from alternative incentives for innovation, and offer prize money as the reward. An example -- not given to me by anyone at the campaign -- would be prize money for malaria treatments, as drugs for conditions affecting mainly third-world residents don't find a lot of urgency in the R&D departments of publicly-traded pharmaceutical companies.
All this is sound. Pharmaceuticals are too important, and the companies too entrenched, for any president to upend the industry's incentives and operating procedures with a single pen stroke. A test program exploring the viability of the idea and proving its effectiveness (or lack thereof), is exactly what's needed, and would lend itself to easy expansion in the event that it performed well. That Edwards has opened the discussion on this is not only to his credit, but reflects remarkably well on the policy team he's assembled.
(Photo from Flickr)
