Consumer Project on Technology

Love, J. 2003. Evidence Regarding Research and Development Investments in Innovative and Non-Innovative Medicines. Washington, DC Consumer Project on Technology. 

Barton, J. H. 2004. TRIPS and the Global Pharmaceutical Market. Health Affairs 23 146-154. Boelaert, M., L. Lynen, W. Van Damme, and R. Colebunders. 2002. Letter to the Editor Do Patents Prevent Access to Drugs for HIV in Developing Countries JAMA 287 840-841. Consumer Project on Technology (CPT). 2001. Comment on Attaran/Gillespie-White and PhRMA... 

James Love, director of the Ralph Nader-founded Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, D.C., is one of the angriest of the consumer advocates. To tear apart the high cost estimates, he focuses on human clinical trials, by far the most expensive part of the R D process. 

The second, more recent study (17) analyzed the costs and benefits of selected NASA Technology Utilization Office activities and, therefore, is also an operational assessment. Unlike the first study, however, both information dissemination and applications projects were studied and, in the case of the applications projects, the technologies had not yet reached the market. Two information projects and nine applications projects were analyzed. Again, the basic conceptual approach to benefits calculations was consumers surplus. Of particular interest here is the technique used to arrive at estimates of cost savings, and thus benefits, when no sales or market penetration data exist. (The general procedure is discussed on pp. 103-123.) First, market size estimates were made, then estimates of the costs, performance, and market penetration of each project technology and competing... 

The extraordinary advances in digital, medical, and scientific technology over the past decade have had a tremendous impact on the way in which we live and work today. Nowhere is this more evident than in the high tech realm of pharmaceutical research. The completion of the Human Genome Project, the increased speed and power of computers, and the invention of sophisticated laboratory equipment and techniques have opened up new avenues of discovery that are rapidly paving the way toward tomorrow s blockbuster drugs. Outside the labs, both the Internet and the media have provided consumers and physicians alike with instant access to unprecedented amounts of medical news and information. This not only fuels the demand for better, faster treatments but it also redefines the arena in which companies vie for sales and market share. 

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