Thirty Four: Government and Big Ideas

So two corporations, Pfizer and Ranbaxy, have agreed delay the marketing of a generic version of Lipitor. The upshot of this agreement is apparently that Pfizer will preserve about $13 billion per year of revenue for a couple of years. Do you think that Ranbaxy will somehow, some way, see some of this money?

More importantly, what is the ethical and moral calculus behind two private enterprises (albeit publicly held) deciding to limit the availability of a drug which all medical experts agree is a life extender and saver? Pfizer will no doubt argue that the massive profits it pulls in from Lipitor are helping to fund the research and development of other future "Lipitors."

But I submit that this is exactly the kind of issue where the feds should step in and make a decision. Who, besides the federal government, has the clout to wrestle with these two corporate giants and the lack of a vested financial interest?

As I sit in my office filling out forms to comply with ridiculously trivial regulations promulgated by countless and nameless bureaucrats, it strikes me how seriously off course government has gotten. There are certainly Big Issues that government can and should deal with. Let's hope in the early years of Obamaland the idealists will tackle some of these areas before the system inevitably turns them all into short-sighted and self-absorbed parasites.