Patients, the mother of innovation.

The pharmaceutical industry is in a tough place right now. They are always being told to come up with new drugs, and that there's never enough money for research. Yet at the same time people are upset about the high prices of medications.

Like any industry, they are subject to market pressures. They need to make a profit in order for them to continue the research that may lead to new drugs in the future.

However, the pharmaceutical industry is in a unique position. Unlike other industries like textiles or cars, there are lives at stake.

If the pharmaceutical companies aren't making money, they will stop developing new drugs. They can't just shut down production and make something else.

On the other hand, if they are overcharging people for their drugs to make higher profits, then they risk backlash from public opinion.

It's a tough place to be, and it seems like there isn't any good solution.

Well, firstly a good place, in order to understand this, to start is the pharmaceutical industry's longstanding reliance on patents and intellectual property rights as its primary source of profit. To be sure, in general most people agree that inventors need to be compensated for their hard work but it seems rather self-serving when this compensation takes so long to pay out. This is seen especially clearly with drugs like Sovaldi which are priced at around $84 000 per treatment (and have no competition). This means it can take quite some time before the company actually makes any money from its investment.

However, there is the question of how much we should be concerned with this. Generally speaking if pharmaceutical companies are not making enough money to cover their expenses and pay investors they will go out of business which means that as long as people generally have access to health care then it's not a problem - but in practice monopolies tend to result from patenting drugs rather than lack thereof.

You might argue that making drugs affordable would eliminate the monopoly and therefore solve the problem of high prices but this is a flawed argument. Firstly, it ignores that cost-cutting measures are usually used to maintain profit margins and often have little effect on lowering actual prices.

Secondly, it ignores the fact that having a monopoly on production means you can effectively shift costs onto consumers (e.g. through higher prices) which could lead to reduced demand for pharmaceuticals and therefore less innovation in that field. There is also the problem of what happens if one drug company goes out of business or a particular drug no longer sells as well - do people have access to alternatives? Of course this only applies to drugs with competition but there seems to be little incentive from the market for any new entrants.

Finally, there is the question of whether patents are necessary to incentivize innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. This seems like a good idea on paper but in practice it doesn't seem to work very well as most drugs under patent have only minor incremental improvements over older ones.

To be honest I think the whole thing is a bit of mess. Patents are becoming more and more expensive to acquire (and enforce) but this doesn't seem to be correlated with any increase in innovation and though there are many ways you could tackle the problem it seems most people will just end up trying to game the system rather than actually fixing it.

Pharmaceutical companies are stuck in the same business model that they've had for decades. They rely on a system which includes printing out paper packets with their names on them, selling those paper packets to doctors and hospitals who then use that packet to prescribe medication to patients.

To be honest, I think it's time to take a step back and re-evaluate the pharmaceutical industry. It seems that many of them are stuck with this model for no other reason than 'because they've always done it like that'. This is likely because they have been in business for so long and have become comfortable.

There are many reasons why pharmaceutical companies should be trying to re-invent themselves. For one, paper packets are a thing of the past. All you need is an internet connection to look up any medication and read about its side effects and other pertinent information.

Nowadays, people are also more health conscious. They want to know more about what they're putting into their bodies and the information has to be available in a way that is easily accessible.

As a result, I think that pharmaceutical companies should be looking to create apps which will allow doctors and patients easier access to information about medications.

They could also consider using VR to simulate how different medications would effect the body. This way, a doctor could prescribe medication without having to rely on their (sometimes imperfect) knowledge of pharmaceuticals.

There are certain things, that cannot be explained or understood by science alone. For example, why do we feel a certain way about something? Science can give us the exact chemical make-up of an emotion or feeling, but what it cannot do is tell us why we have this reaction to said chemicals in our brain.

I think that the pharmaceutical industry needs to consider this when developing medicines, especially for mental illnesses. While it is true that depression and anxiety are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, these chemicals do not exist in a vacuum.

We need to find a way of balancing the chemical reactions in our brain without completely shutting off the emotions that make us human. Not only will this help people with mental illnesses, but it can also be used for anyone who is feeling depressed or anxious for whatever reason.

Positive emotions are important too. The more positive we feel about something, the better we will perform in our daily lives (see below). This could be used to help people do their jobs better and even improve physical health.

So I think the pharmaceutical industry needs to work on drugs that stimulate positive emotions and allow people to better control their negative emotions. This will help us all become more productive individuals, which is good for business.

Of-course that is easier said than done. But the first step, is to change the way pharmaceuticals are communicated to the masses.

And that's what I intend to do.