Medical advancements in procedures and pharmaceutical drugs are a building block for which successful societies are constructed. When developing nations are forced to buy drugs for a premium, they are required to sacrifice valuable resources on medicine that they could readily and more efficiently allocate to develop infrastructure such as the construction of new schools and/or hospitals. Stiglitz points out that this is a continuing problem in the global economy where patents on drugs that can treat diseases and viruses, such as AIDS, Malaria and Heart Disease, are being challenged by generic drug makers in the developing world with the intent to make important essential drugs cheaper to purchase for their citizens.

Recently there has been a struggle between the pharmaceutical giants and the developing world. The most recent pharmaceutical giant to back down was Abbott Laboratories, as the conceded to selling the latest version of their AIDS drug Kaletra in Thailand at a discounted rate. This occurred after Abbott Laboratories in February withheld its newest AIDS drug from sale in Thailand after the government said it would allow the sale of generic versions of this and other drugs, violating the patent right. Abbott joins Merck and Sanofi-Aventis SA in slashing prices of their AIDS and heart-disease drugs in order to dissuade Thailand and other developing nations from switching to less-expensive generic alternatives. (FULL ARTICLE)

This type of news raises the question of whether medicine and drugs should be universally provided? The private sector clearly spawns innovation and development, so if medicine was to be socialized what incentive would many individuals have to spend the countless hours working to develop new cutting edge drugs. Money makes the world go round, but if companies can’t make drugs affordable for developing countries there will be a lack of human capital development which will stunt market development/growth and essentially cause companies to lose out in the long run. Something to think about the next time you develop a cutting edge drug that could help solve or alleviate many of the problems of the developing world.