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Quote by Thomas Pogge

“What we should do is require or at least permit innovators to license their green innovations free of charge in exchange for public payments based on the impact this innovation has on the environment - emissions averted or something of this sort.”

Quote by Thomas Pogge

Author

Thomas Pogge is a German-born American philosopher known for his contributions to ethics and political philosophy. His research focuses on issues of global justice, poverty, and inequality, particularly concerning human rights in developing countries. more

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“It is irrational to charge high prices for socially valuable innovations as this guarantees that they will be underutilized. It is much better to sell them at cost and then to reward the innovator in some other way. This is not always possible, because in some cases the value of an innovation is in the eye of the beholder; it's very difficult to value how much a new Madonna song is worth, for example. But in the case of medicines, green technologies and seeds in agriculture, such an alternative reward mechanism is fairly straightforward.”

“It's more important to try to do something for the crores of poor people of my country.”

People Trying Important Country Poor Poor People

Author:Imran Khan

“In the domain of pharmaceuticals, we need a metric for health impact, and with this metric we can then assess the value of the introduction of a new product and pay its innovator accordingly, say on the basis of the product's measured health impact during its first ten years on the market. In exchange, innovators must of course renounce the usual rewards they are otherwise entitled to, namely the patent-protected markup on the price of their product.”

Needs Years Firsts Values Courses Pay Products Ten Bases Impact Rewards Usual Protected Entitled Domain Introduction Renounce Innovators Patents Metrics New Products

Author:Thomas Pogge

“Some of the developing-country governments and populations are tired of having things rammed down their throats, but we're not yet at the stage we want to get to, namely where the developing countries join forces with one another on behalf of creative alternative ideas about how to take things forward.”

Want Ideas Country Government Force Creative Stage Tired Population Alternatives Developing Throat Behalf Developing Countries

Author:Thomas Pogge

“If you ask yourself who is paying for pharmaceutical innovation today, the answer is that it's the more affluent populations paying for still-patented advanced medicines at the pharmacy, for comprehensive insurance coverage or for a national health system.”

Ifs Stills Today Asks Answers Innovation Medicine Population Comprehensive Coverage Affluent Pharmaceutical Pharmacy Health System

Author:Thomas Pogge

“What is really nice about the Health Impact Fund is that it is a win-win, something that without much cost to anyone makes a lot of people better off.”

People Winning Nice Cost Impact Fund Better Off Really Nice Win Win

Author:Thomas Pogge

“For the present system to work, poor people must be excluded from the innovation, because if they could get access at an affordable price, then affluent people would find ways to buy it cheaply as well - and then the innovator would be poorly rewarded and introductions of new medicines would decline.”

People Ifs Way Wells Would Be Poor Innovation Medicine Access Decline Poor People Introduction Affordable Innovators Excluded Affluent

Author:Thomas Pogge

“With the Health Impact Fund, the innovation is paid for separately, through publicly funded health impact rewards, and the product is sold at the cost of production to all. Here, the cruel injustice of preventing the poor from buying at cost - evidenced by today's suppression of the trade in generic versions of patented medicines - would no longer be needed.”

Today Poor Products Needed Cost Paid Innovation Trade Impact Medicine Rewards Injustice Productions Versions Buying Fund Preventing Suppression Generic

Author:Thomas Pogge

“You can think of the Health Impact Fund as a mechanism that would keep the benefits and burdens of pharmaceutical innovation for the affluent roughly as they are while massively reducing the burdens presently imposed upon the poor. This sounds like magic. But it really works because the current system is not Pareto efficient. It's a system that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in litigation costs and deadweight losses that HIF-registered medicines would sidestep. By avoiding these losses, the HIF reform can bring improvements all around - including for pharmaceutical innovators.”

“Companies are actually much better than governments and other bureaucracies at organizing in a holistically efficient way the extremely complex path from the examination of molecules all the way to the delivery of medicines to patients. Already in the conception and selection of research projects, companies would anticipate all the challenges down the line that they will need to overcome in order to achieve actual health impact. Bureaucratic organizations, by contrast, are notoriously bad at this sort of optimizing.”