alt Hacker News>blantatly skirting patent laws
Why is this a bad thing? The quickest way to fix the medical/insurance/bureaucracy complex is to just allow people to sell direct to consumer.
The best (worst) example of this is CPAP. Ideally you'd just be able to go and buy one for $300, but instead there is a complex around "necessity" and "prescription", which creates an effective monopoly where the exact same hardware can be sold at different price points with software locked features.
If even a "simple" mechanical device like this which violates no patents and can't materially harm a person in any way can be restricted on grounds of paternalistic "safety", then one would be right to remain skeptical of the claim that the FDA is restricting action against unauthorized semaglutide knockoffs to
>safeguard consumers from drugs for which the FDA cannot verify quality, safety, or efficacy.
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Why is it bad when companies break the law? We have patent laws for a reason (to incentivize enormously expensive drug development).
Novo and Lilly already sell direct to the consumer! Yes, you need a prescription, but once you have one you can buy straight from the manufacturer.
Well you either remove all the bureaucracy around drug testing and approval and make it cheap to develop a new drug, or you prevent drug makers from making money if they are successful at developing a new molecule. But if you do both, all you will get is zero research. Right now it takes 10s of billions in R&D budget to bring new molecules to the market, which is insane.
...violates no patents and can't materially harm a person in any way can be restricted on grounds of paternalistic "safety", then one would be right to remain skeptical of the claim that the FDA is restricting action against unauthorized semaglutide knockoffs to...
Yep in other countries CPAPs are over the counter. In America you need to go to a sleep lab for a wasteful overnight sleep study (sometimes two!) that costs thousands. And then have appointments with a “doctor” who provides no useful help but is necessary for the prescription. All for the machine to figure out its own optimal settings anyways. Total racket and regulatory capture.
As long as the company that did the research and the medical professional gets paid the same amount. I’m completely OK with cutting out the insurance and the bureaucracy and other non-value add middleman, but the value add partners need to get paid for this to be sustainable.
Patent laws exist for a reason. It’s so people that come up with paradigm changing ideas and inventions can get rich off of it. This is something we want to maintain.
In Italy, you can walk into a shop and buy as many contacts as you like.
In the US, if you haven't paid your annual tithing to get a hall pass from an optometrist, the FDA won't let you.