Profit motives

Today, almost all chemical treatments are liquid, which (profit motives apart) simply enables the chemicals to be fed and controlled more easily and with greater precision than with the use of powdered products. 

The development of pharmacotherapy medications for legal drugs like alcohol and nicotine. Is driven primarily by profit motives. In 2001, Pharmacia (which was acquired by Pfizer In 2003), advised Investors that NIcorette currently controls about half of the worldwide smoking cessation market with sales In 2001 of 299 million, (Pharmacia Corporation 2001 Annual Report, http //media.corporate-ir.net/media fiies/NYS/PHA/reports/ ar2001.pdf), A study completed In 1998, valued the smoking cessation market" at 450 million, and predicted It would reach nearly 1,5 billion by 2007, ( The Market for Smoking Cessation Therapies Will More Than Triple Over the Next Ten Years, (1998, June 10), Press Release, Decision Resources, http //www.forces.org/articies/fiies/pharma.htm)... 

Box 4). Causes of irrational use include lack of knowledge, skills or independent information, unrestricted availability of medicines, overwork of health personnel, inappropriate promotion of medicines and profit motives from selling medicines. 

To save shipping space, the Ministry of Agriculture directed farmers to concentrate on the production of grain, and guaranteed markets and prices. Agriculture showed that the profit motive and state direction could be successfully combined to create a more efficient sector. 

Schieppati, A., G. Remuzzi, and S. Garattini. 2001. Modulating the Profit Motive to Meet Needs of the Less-Developed World. Lancet 3S8 1638-1641. 

The most recent interpretations indicate that if you experimentally practice technology that is patented with the intent of expanding scientific knowledge or conducting curiosity-driven or basic science, you are free to do so. However, if you are conducting that research with a profit motive in mind, if your intention is to develop a product for commerce or intellectual property for license, you do not qualify for the research exemption and are subject to any patent covering the technology in question. 

Not-for-proht organizations, including universities and research institutes, have a natural affinity for such partnership arrangements since they avoid the natural skepticism that comes from a profit motivation. But, even for profit, companies can create a virtual partnership by communicating clearly to the FDA—in action as well as words—a willingness to put public health and safety above short-term revenue goals. 

There is something that society, legislators, the FDA, and drug companies can do. It would take a lot of negotiation, however, since it would rely on altruism rather than a pure profit motive. The selection criteria for clinical candidates are so tough that, within a drug company, even good candidates do not get a chance to fail they are dropped prior to failure, sometimes even before any suspicion of prospective failure. 

Consider now two possibilities. (1) o < w < Wo Atid technique 11 Is the only known technique. If technique i is introduced, capitalists will switch to it immediately, since it is associated with a higher rate of profit (at that wage level). The switch, however, entails a fall in the rate of surplus-value, which under technique ii was wB/Ow and now becomes wA/Ow. (ii) Wo< A and technique i is the only known technique. If technique 11 is introduced it will be preferred on profit-maximizing grounds, and will also lead to an increase in the rate of surplus-value. Hence it is shown that profit-motivated innovation can bring about a rise in the rate of surplus-value, but - contrary to what Marx asserted - need not do so. 

The goal of the university researcher will be to acquire new knowledge, obtain funding for laboratory research and secure material for publication. The profit motive and the development and acquisition of exclusive rights in new products and processes are usually the objectives of an industrial research sponsor or licensor. 

One is almost apologetic about approaching such an important subject in such an unsophisticated manner, but it is most important to get at the heart of the matter without delay. Profits are very important to all of us, for without the profit motive, free enterprise is dead. 

The student of weaponry, as well as the professional weaponeer, is an asset to his culture. The more he knows, the more territory he can defend, either as an individual or by supplying less well-armed friends and neighbors. There is also a strong profit motive in making weapons to sell. 

In this section, we have described the scientific method (which is summarized in Figure 1.2) as it might ideally be applied. However, it is important to remember that science does not always progress smoothly and efficiently. Scientists are human. They have prejudices, they misinterpret data, they can become emotionally attached to their theories and thus lose objectivity, and they may play politics. Science is affected by profit motives, budgets, fads, wars, and religious beliefs. 

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