 So my name is Leo Sincumana, I'm the chair of the economics department. This is the best day of the department. We look forward to this day every year. It's called the undergraduate events day. And it features the excellent work that our students are doing in all areas. Starting with this one, which is at the end. We have two great teams that are going to educate us. What's your thoughts again? Should the U.S. eliminate pharmaceutical brands? Good. Okay, so we're here with the views from both teams. Then we'll have awards for various areas of work and excellence. Then downstairs on the second floor there is the URAP hospital station. This is as students have done research for the semester with faculty members showcasing what they found. And next door is the non-profit committee service project's poster session. Students have worked with non-profit agencies in the area never to tell you what they did in those places. Then we will have a cooperative enterprise program presentation at 6. And the highlight is the senior barbecue. Which starts at... And then it starts at 4.30 but you have to do something before you can... So you either have to be here the day before the poster session and then you can have your barbecue. I will now hand over to the moderator of the debate to introduce the teams. I want to take a moment to thank our judges for taking the time to come and we all rely on your support. These are long-time supporters. Well, my name is Harry Walsh. I'm a graduating senior of the economics department. I'm a governor of the undergraduate economics club and I will be moderating this debate. If we'd like to just go around and con a clockwise starting with the judges just introduce yourself briefly and then maybe for the debaters themselves maybe your year and your name and your year might be good. Tom Peake. Hi, I'm Tom Peake. Class of 2015. I'm a senior research analyst at the UMass Tom Peake Institute and I'm a city counselor in the East Hampton Massachusetts. Hi, I'm Bill Troy. I'm a professor of some time in the 70s. I'm currently a senior lecturer at the University of New Hampshire. I'm Zach Baers. I'm class of 2015 in economics and I'm the executive director of Phenom, the public higher education network in Massachusetts. I'm John Blum. My name is Salvatore Biola. I'm also a freshman of the University of Massachusetts. Hello, my name is Bob Call. I'm a freshman. My name is Mike Bauer. I'm a junior. Great. So now that we've introduced everyone, I'll just go over, first of all, the topic. Should the U.S. eliminate pharmaceutical patents? We have our protein, those in favor of elimination and then their opposition right here. The overall structure of the debate, we're going to have 30 minutes of opening arguments, so 15 minutes for the protein and then 15 minutes just general detailed summary argument again in response for the other team. We'll then have a brief five minute break. Everyone kind of collect their thoughts and then we'll begin a time period of debate and rebuttal, which will be 16 minutes. So this will be basically alternating four minutes a piece twice. This will start with the opposition right here, the anti. Then go to the pro. Anti-pro, four minutes each. We'll be able to rebut and argue a little more rapidly. Then we'll open up the floor to questions for 10 minutes and so that should be maybe about time for three to four questions depending on the length. So from professors, alumni, and audience, we want to open it up to audience as well as we have in past years. And then 10 minutes of closing arguments, which will be five minute pro and five minute anti-incorporating rebuttals. For the benefit of the two teams, I'm going to be moderating by I'll be giving you a visual two minutes with a peace sign here, visual one minute. Then I will say 30 seconds and then I will call time. You don't need to cut yourself off mid-sentence, but just please finish up very quickly, finish up that sentence or the most immediate thought. So with that said, I'm going to turn it over to the pro side and once you guys are set up at the podium, I'll begin the time. The government taking a central role to promote economic activity and innovation has existed throughout the history of capitalism. The creation of limited liability companies in the 18th and 19th centuries led to the concentration of enough capital to form the great steel railroad and the chemical industries. Governments established tariffs and distributed subsidies to promote domestic industry. Without these government policies, it would be hard to argue that we would have seen such economic success in today's developed economic countries, especially the United States. Patents are one of the most interesting forms of government grant and protection. In 1790, then secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson oversaw the United States first patent program. Then, for about $5, you could get a patent for up to 14 years. Today, a patent can cost upward of $1,000 and has a 20-year protection period. While protecting individual inventors from intellectual theft could support innovation, when it comes to pharmaceutical patents, we clearly see government protection gone wrong. Patents allow companies to sell their drugs at incredible prices. A three-month treatment of Sovaldi, the hepatitis C drug, costs $84,000 in the United States. Meanwhile, in India, that same treatment costs only $200. If we equate this to a tariff, we are looking at a rate of over 40,000%. The prices in those countries are more or less the result of intentional negotiations between pharmaceutical companies and the national governments or through a system of price controls. Comparing the United States drug prices to the United Kingdom. While rheumatoid arthritis drug, Humera, costs $2,200 in the United States, the price in the UK is half that, at $1,100. And while the antidepressant, Simbalta, costs close to $200 in the United States, in the UK, it only costs about $50. Patents allow pharmaceutical companies to conduct their research in secrecy. This allows them to leave out serious health risks associated with their products. An analysis of the inaccurate marketing of five different drugs which led to the death of tens of thousands of people found that the life value of the premature deaths is equivalent to the total cost of all pharmaceutical research during the period that these drugs were marketed. No wonder why prescription drugs are now the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Instead of accelerating innovation, patents can actually become a major impediment. During the Human Genome Project, a patenting of DNA sequences reduced further innovation by upwards of 30%. And in general, research and development also becomes more expensive due to the research materials themselves being subject to patents. A particular concerning phenomena among pharmaceutical companies is to engage in a process known as evergreening. This allows companies to prolong their monopolistic control of their products by making slight tweaks to the already existing medications and then patenting them as completely new and improved. Between 2005 and 2015, an incredible 78% of all drug patents approved by the FDA were these evergreen products. Even when a patent expires, there's no guarantee that the price of that formally protected drug would decrease through the influx of generics. Companies with expiring patents can partake in pay for delay agreements with other companies planning to produce the generic version of the drug. Each year, these deals alone amount to dollars in higher drug costs. A pharmaceutical company can also produce authorized generics. After a patent expires, if the same company that produced the protected drug is the first to market a generic version of the drug, then it gets a sole right to market the drug for a six month period, thus allowing them to capture the generic market. So not only can a manufacturer have monopolistic control over a drug while it is subject to a patent, but after that patent is expired as well. This completely contradicts the logic of having an expiration date on patents to invite greater competition which would in turn drive down prices. Thus, while patents alone incentivize pharmaceutical companies to partake in egregious behavior, the clandestine monopolistic nature of these firms that serves as a serious catalyst for the production of these exorbitantly priced mismark medications. That's something both sides here can argue to. But do patents have an important role in terming the market prices for pharmaceuticals? Of course they do. Pharma, the premier trade group of the pharmaceutical industry, boasts on their website that quote, a fair, stable and predictable patent system is the engine of the leading edge U.S. biopharmaceutical industry. They also describe patents as the lifeblood of the pharmaceutical industry. So the words engine and lifeblood involve some kind of source of progression and origin. What could that source be? Again, if we rely on pharma they indicate that quote, patents ensure that the biopharmaceutical sector has the potential to recoup their significant R&D costs to fuel a next generation of scientific advancements, treatments and cures. Thus, it is the cost of research and development that according to the pharma industry themselves motivates companies to acquire a patent. Which in turn gives the company the sole price making ability, regardless of the price out people who need these medications for their own survival. Last year the health insurance giant Blue Cross and Blue Shield went into investigate why in recent years they have been paying so much more for prescription drugs. Now they already don't want to pay for people's medical care. So obviously they would be very concerned if they had to shell it more money for their clients. Blue Cross and Blue Shield found that patented protected brand name drugs were responsible for the tremendous rides and prescription drug spending increasing by 10% a year since 2010. While solely bringing the United States regulation of drug prices in line with the rest of the world, such as allowing Medicare to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry, can engender significant benefits. It does not go far enough to truly bring about a long-lasting transformative solution. We not only need to eliminate drug patents but we also need to change how we do biomedical research and development. Here's what should be done. Instead of the government granting a protection that allows private pharmaceutical manufacturers to research their products with great liberty the government should instead directly fund biomedical research. This can be done through the National Institutes of Health which already spends $30 billion annually on research. Since the patent-protected private sector currently spends around $50 billion on biomedical R&D, tripling the NIH's budget would more than suit the nation's pharmaceutical research needs. Much of the research can be contracted out to private companies under several conditions. One, the research is publicly funded. Two, the companies are subject to direct governmental oversight and three, everything produced from the research is in the public domain. If such a system were to be implemented the savings would amount to over $300 billion a year with possibly greater rates of innovation. Government programs such as Medicaid would see drug prices drop by 50% and Medicare would see prices drop by 70%. This system ends the worst practices under the status quo. No longer will research be done in secrecy. No longer can companies manipulate their products to extend their patent protection and no longer can companies justify charging the highest drug prices in the world. In our current economic system of just basic capitalism it's pretty much there's no real or patents are what really determines why people choose to develop technologies. There's no motivator other than profit for most people to develop a new technology or develop any kind of drug and this is usually okay if people choose to not develop a technology there's usually no harm that comes of it but in the healthcare industry this is not really an option. Millions of people need life saving drugs and without these drugs being developed and they could be developed most people or many people will just die and there's no recourse for that action but there's also no motivation for people to enter these industries if another company is just going to undercut them and produce the same product for much less cost. Without healthcare patents they would either turn their resources which are usually quite considerable because these companies are huge and massive and have huge resources. They would turn their resources to other products where these other products that don't serve society quite as well and would lead to most people all these patients who need these drugs dying and while this does drive the cost of these drugs up a lot of this cost is covered by health insurance and also these companies it gives them the leeway to actually give away the drugs at lower cost to people who really need them when they don't have health insurance and while this does create kind of a temporary monopoly for about 10 years these companies really need a monopoly to survive because otherwise in a way they can profit off of these drugs and then there's no point in them creating any kind of healthcare or any kind of medicines that they need to do. It's also much better for these companies to develop these drugs sooner so while patents are there for 10 years and they do hurt and create a monopoly for 10 years these are necessary because otherwise these companies would not create these drugs at all and they would just constantly delay the manufacture of these kind of life-saving medicines cancer drugs that people would not have otherwise. Thank you. Hello, I'll start and talk about clarifying what is a pan. So as this chart shows the pan term lasts 20 years. The pans are run by the pan agency not by the FDA. The pan is filed the second that the chemical process is constructed. That still has to go through tons of clinical development and clinical trials before approval by the FDA. Then there's this other thing called market exclusivity. Market exclusivity is run by FDA it's completely separate from patents. Patents do allow people to own their intellectual properties. Market exclusivity is allowed by the FDA to limit any competition within the field for that specific genome or that type of chemical process. So even if they do have a pan extension it usually does not last more than what the market exclusivity is. So that is what we need to look at. We need to look at market exclusivity FDA and federal regulations not in the patents. So as stated before market exclusivity is only after the FDA has approved a drug for sale. Those are when these years of limited competition is allowed within the market. So the main one and for the longest time period is orphan drugs. Orphan drugs is a drug that is used for a disease that less than 200,000 people get affected with. But that's how the companies are able to use this and take advantage of it. So why would the companies want to create orphan drugs? So if it has this is an example using airline seating versus economy, business and first class to sell fewer of higher class seats you still gain a higher net revenue than if you did the same one or doing a more common drug. So there is more restrictions for orphan drug just because it's limited in testing because of the limited amount of people you can trial. The cost of development are much higher. But there's also side effects or not really exactly side effects but it can be used to cure other diseases as well. They not usually just work for the one specific drug. That's how they're able to sell it to multiple people. Martin Strelly one of the most hated men in America currently in jail. As you heard the drug Darifrim has skyrocketed in price. But that is not in the case of patents. That is in case by market exclusivity due to that being an orphan drug. Patents actually one of the main component of the drug is actually not handed so there could have been competition when it came to producing but it is very cost it's cost so much to actually start to go into the process of clinical trials to get it approved by the FDA. The FDA has one of the highest standards for generic drugs. Generic drugs must file biologically identical to the drug it's trying to copy from. Healthcare system The healthcare system is one of the other key issues to why the cost of drugs are so high. As stated before in different countries the cost of a single pill would be much different than the cost of the United States. That is because the United States does not argue or negotiate with these pharmaceutical companies to address how much it costs. Now an organization like the Veterans Health Administration of the hospital they actually do negotiate with the prescription drug companies and the pharmaceutical companies but due to regulations and rules set in place Medicare and Medicaid cannot so Medicaid and Medicare covers about 130 million people the United States right now has about 325 million people so the majority about 40% of people are covered by these two and the government isn't even able to negotiate with the ABCs in Britain as stated before the British government is the only body that purchases drugs from these pharmaceutical companies that's why the prices are lower they make it very clear either you buy it or sell it to us for this price or we don't buy it at all so now generic versus major pharmaceutical you probably see this all the time if you've ever been sick with a flu you could probably get Day-Col and I-Col or go to CVS and get their brand to be sold as a generic brand it must follow the exact same bio-equivalent of what was approved by the FDA originally and the majority of the things when it comes to generic drugs is that they're usually produced by the same people that produced the name brand before it is not as much of a substantial revenue increase as before but now they still have a triple effect from years on since there we have the footing and the placement and the infrastructure to continue all business needs profits to operate whether it's Wal-Mart, your local highway store or a pharmaceutical company these patents are what allow the pharmaceutical companies to make a profit without the patents they cannot sell their product for a profit and the profits what allows them to pay their employees and fund further research my mother works for a small pharmaceutical company in Wooburn, Mass called PKC Pharmaceuticals PKC Pharmaceuticals has no more than 20 employees and they wouldn't stand a chance against conglomerates like Johnson & Johnson or Spicer without these patents these patents give them the right to the research and the hard work that they do that a company like Spicer could easily undermine them, copy the product and sell for less if there was no patents without patents these small firms wouldn't stand a chance so our first abuttle would be to address the whole patents do not allow for government to double check to see the safety and the regulations within the company and the testing that they're doing patents actually do that patents have to make sure that they maintain what are they filing and the government keeps a record of everything they're using all the components, all the materials and the way it's done if that isn't the case and that nothing will be patent following that the FDA has a strict regulatory inspection of all the steps in the process if that was not the case and the FDA would not approve the drug there has been mistakes during the past the main point is that the patents are the reason that the government is actually able to check because without the patents we would have no idea what people are doing and what steps or processes or who actually developed it first for at least why these costs are so high for in like a capitalist society if we wanted to switch all the way to a socialist society yes we could have these drugs being under government regulation and they could have be like strongly regulated but I think if you want these companies their goal is to profit and for that to happen they have to set the prices otherwise they will not manufacture the drugs and then these drugs will not exist and that would be hugely detrimental to many patients across the country lastly just getting a partisan agreement on controlling the government to control the drugs that would be very tough we see all the shutdowns everything that happens now trying to get the healthcare plan set up also tax payers who would raise the money raise money for tax payers they wouldn't be happy with that any sort of industry like Medicaid or Medicare that's run by the government usually is bogged down in tons of bureaucracy it doesn't run very well it doesn't run very well and these kind of adding one more industry completely run by the government would cause just such a massive slowdown in development of new technologies and the last point I would like to address is that every country that was stated earlier and the prices of their pharmaceuticals do have hot patents and most of the production is actually either in-house or traded among so if we limit the amount of trade that could happen in the United States that would cause a detrimental effect for all the residents and different types of patients who require the different drugs that's why in 2015 Medicaid had the generic drug act which allowed Medicaid and Medicare to not limit the type of drugs to only be a certain brand but also to allow generic drugs as well to try to reduce prices and also add the different type of competition thank you so firstly the opposing team mentioned that research and development would not occur without high profits but working solely for profits actually does not increase or inspire innovation to create medicine that the public needs most but companies are interested in which drugs will make the most profit and create pharmaceuticals that will be well marketed this also means that their ideal market is the rich who can afford to buy their drugs the research is focused on curing lifestyle diseases experienced by the rich instead of curing diseases that overwhelmingly affect the poor marketability also has to do with Oxycontin which was a direct aim to increase profit for Purdue Pharma created and marketed Oxycontin purposely and purposely misled the public about the extremely addictive nature of the drug this led to 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone and is almost directly responsible for the heroin epidemic that exists today so casualties like this happen when pharmaceutical companies are just in it to make a profit and not save human lives a couple things about the program that we suggested so one there was point brought about raising taxes significantly the big thing with this program is that it would save 300 billion dollars a year when we're asking to triple the NIH budget from about 30 billion to 90 billion I mean we're seeing an immense savings if we transition that that's due to companies won't be allowed to mark up their drug prices to a tremendous amount because they justify it due to the patents which is I think the core reason why we need to eliminate them another thing about like oh it's just like companies there's a nice little negotiation between countries and these companies and you know that's it you just need to handle the smart exclusivity thing in school but we also see indications of countries not recognizing patents that we saw this in India recently a few years ago with the Lakumya drug a company tried to throw a green product it was pretty much exactly the same and the government was like we're not going to recognize this and we produced our own generic which was far cheaper than the evergreen product so I want to address those a few marks again on patents allowing pharmaceutical companies to profit so greatly off of their intellectual property we acknowledge that the the costs of research and development are high however they're making pharmaceutical companies are making gross profits a study done by AARP found that five out of the six most profitable companies in America were pharmaceutical companies so patents are the thing that are allowing companies these pharmaceutical companies to continue producing producing and making such great profits when really they could produce for and make less profits thank you first I would like to address the whole Indian pan complication the issue that we have with pans in India is that yes they did reject a certain claim but if every country did that then no country's intellectual property would be respected no company would want to invest or trade outside the borders because all they would do is sell their product and then do it themselves that's not part of business that's not trade that's not trying to benefit yes we can reject certain products and yes the polio vaccine when it was first produced was not pan the creator actually made the quote it says can you pan the sun no you can't but he had a motive to do it he had the motive of saving millions of lives throughout time he was known as one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in modern history but that's a case one in few what about people affected with a disease that only affects 20,000 people 100,000, 200,000 300,000 what about those people every year getting more and more the AIDS epidemic the heroin the whole AIDS cancer much research comes through this ability to profit to invest back into it for the companies that just want to profit will ignore dangers with drugs like oxycontin that is true but that has a lot more to do with government regulation and has little to do with actual patents because the patent itself will not cause companies to ignore will not cause them to ignore the side effects the fact that they have no oversight or regulation is a problem but that does have little to do with the actual patents and them getting any profitability out of that drug lastly with the evergreening that is a problem with the way patents are set up not patents themselves people have a right to their discoveries their research what they make so maybe just reform the patent laws instead of being so lenient with them one last thing is that the majority of revenue that comes back into the pharmaceutical industries does not come from the period of the patent majority of the period of the patent is lost through the clinical process and clinical research market exclusivity after approved by the FDA which allows sales is what gives much of the revenue which is run by the FDA a completely separate entity than the patent offices itself patents were used throughout history even the car industry the airplane industry and everything there was still competition that came afterwards but there was not this market exclusivity that lasted longer than the date of production and sale that has the the big impact that we see today and most of the impact and the high prices is because of something completely separate from patents it's market exclusivity and the FDA so in your rebuttal just then you made a point or a hypothetical argument or a disease or some illness that affects a small part of the population so 20,000, 30,000 however many of you said but that was a point that we made in our introduction that when there are these diseases that only affect a smaller portion of the population there's even less incentive for pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs for them because there aren't enough consumers in the market so if they produce a drug where only 20,000, 10,000, 30,000 people will buy it they won't be able to profit off of it unless they sell it for a ridiculously high price I would also like to address the OxyContin argument that was made before you mentioned that they're not ignoring the side effects to make a profit but I feel like that's exactly why they're doing it patents allow them to make these outrageous profits and then they market it to people as if there are no side effects and that's how people die and they're not the only pharmaceutical that's ever done this there's a few drugs Vioxx, Evandia, Bextra and Zyprexa which are the top five drugs that have caused deaths because of profits and misleading side effects so I have two key points so one about that if patents are gone then it will be a disaster because now other countries we trade in can't get those pharmaceuticals we saw this debate recently with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement so we had companies that tried to enforce stronger patent protection than those agreements but we saw a reaction to that was actually in other countries public health advocates as well as the World Health Organization actually came against those stronger patent protections and argued that those actually would be detrimental to the public health of other countries around the world another thing we talked about the creation of the polio vaccine it's actually interesting we look at how that was created so it was created by March for Dimes which was an initiative by Franco Roosevelt and how that was funded was actually through the aspirin like hey everyone got loose change bring a donation and we'll together fund this great cure and I would say they were successful at that so that was I think a completely different model than say some big firm trying to like okay guys we gotta like you know create this product we have to do this in a sort of like a secret way because we don't want all this getting out because we could always put sugar in and claim it does this when maybe it does this we're not gonna tell them about maybe this heart effect that it might have and oh well if it gets to the market I'm looking at you Vioxx so yeah so I think really looking at like the core R&D component of that and really switching that to a more public model, a more transparent model and it can be quite effective at bringing drugs to the market that are affordable and that to benefit the American population thank you I need the debate to start with you I have a question for the in the opening argument the probe side in addition to criticizing the current path system suggested an alternative approach where instead of research being done in order to make profit off the sales of drugs that research would be done as a publicly funded process and then the results of that research would then become if I don't understand it's currently part of the public domain I would only give you an opportunity to respond to that idea and why you think that would or wouldn't work well most of that comes in from research, most of the research actually is done by government or universities or other side branches that give it to the company or works with them with the whole idea of public domain and the research is that yes it could be done but it's not specialized for that one incident to enforce the infrastructure in the United States to make research be its prime part of researching the pharmaceuticals for all these different variations of the different diseases would be a great expenditure at first and even later on and during the whole process these companies are specialized to do drug research over long periods of time they have the setup, the infrastructure and they might have it dispersed throughout different parts and by working with different universities and the government how they get these results but hands are not responsible for the safety of a drug the FDA is there as a governmental agency to inspect and review all the clinical trials hands are there just to keep the idea that if a company spends millions of billions of dollars to research into a single type of drug then they deserve to have the credit afterwards to be able to sell it if it is approved by the FDA hands do not give a straight shot to be approved that is the FDA's falter and lack of responsibility the patent office itself is only just to keep the domain of the idea that they came up with and the product that they have in their hands on the proposing change the model that you are selecting reminds me of the model of how we do defense management that there's a handful of players who are making all the choices and I don't think the history of defense spending is something that necessarily is economically efficient has led to a lot of waste and particularly in terms of disease I at the second point I'd like to address the fact that how we make the decisions on which diseases you are going to tackle the time to because in a political system it just becomes a matter of lobbying it's not scientific analysis so those are all those two questions and observations so for the first point I would say comparing it to contract for defense the reason why we see a lot of I would say a lot of mismanagement and overspending for defense is because it is for defense it has to be kept in secret there's a lot of research going on you can't put any kind of weapon in the public domain so I think there's things that are very different from what you would spend in defense what would you like the public to know when it comes to contract and defense products versus study work that will be done for public health reasons you can do the same question okay so for the second question I can't really say what is your point or try to shouldn't I think that's just best to the actual public health experts or the NHS so from 2010 to 2016 the NIH was involved with 97% of the FDA approvals for drugs they had some sort of constipation to it so they're well aware of course what priorities of this country is for producing medications I would say so so I think it's really up to the experts and then to decide what should be the country's priority going forward so there's no market there's lobbying and there's experts there's no view of a market or a property based approach when it comes to the research and development pretty much the government will give you a grant, give you an award so based on that sort of system you'll be rewarded for your contribution whatever it is and then that public to me so it's like oh a lot of that was coordination I'm going to take it and I look what I've predicted here when it comes to the actual end of the word production of medication itself we don't address that because we think really the core thing when it comes to patents is that research and development phase which is really that justification for why you have patents in the SWAT you see these incredible drug prices I think it's really addressing that first phase is essential for art I have a question for each one I just wanted to read your slides first you know clearly we have kind of a mixed system here it's not completely capitalist, it's not completely government run government is doing some research companies are doing a lot of progressive research and also just to clarify in many directions lower administrative costs the most private insurance so my question for you guys is you said you need a profit to to operate you chart said that you need income to operate, you need money to pay people and you know that you need to make money so have you done any research into how much of the profits from these companies are actually being reinvested in research versus how much is going to shareholders and executives no we didn't but in some companies cases it would be public other companies would not majority of the companies that are pharmaceutical companies are actually public so you can actually invest in their stocks so the companies doing well you could be doing well as well 401k for example if you want to invest into the companies that are being profitable you yourself you yourself will get profit back I think they're also not necessarily obliged to put that money back into research and development they are allowed to make profit if they choose to do so if they want to invest in another drug that is different but they are not necessarily okay and then for your side I think this can get a really good point that patents and the FDA process are separate processes so I'm just wondering I think by creating a whole new system you're kind of you might have an answer to my question which is to clarify would eliminating patents for pharmaceuticals also address the market specific period or would that be eliminated as well or even if they didn't have patent will the FDA be able to come and say you're still the only one who can sell it I'm sorry are you sorry to reframe it under your system would both be eliminated or just a patent under our system both would be eliminated because I guess that market exclusivity also in a way eliminates competition and that competition that we talk about to drop down prices is essential and I guess market after research is working to effectively lower prices one more question there's a question I just wanted to on both sides if you think that growth prices are too high it depends on where you're at it depends on which country the United States the United States with growth prices are more or less twice what they are in European countries of Canada what twice is high for regular consumers if you think that it's true do you think these prices are too high if you think they're fair they are too high but it's not a patent problem patents are not set at the price of the drugs they're too high and I think that's the direct correlation with patents, patents allow these companies to make these critical profits so they want to market these prices because they can and because the government will take those from the government the government will just take those prices I have it right here the hepatitis C virus limitation so the government buys it for $85,000 per force but even production costs are under $100 of course so that's thank all of you for your still do that one session I'm sorry just closing just to leave you and we'll start do you guys have five minutes to just kind of summarize the argument that you had made and you proposed five minutes for closing all so to close we would like to address again some of the points that we made and then the rebuttals to the the arguments that you made so obviously one of the the prices that are like associated with companies having such protection over their intellectual property and so we gave examples over certain drugs having these price discrepancies between different countries and even within the United States drugs that have gone up in prices price arbitrarily just because of new ownership but I guess the bottom line with that is like showing these price hikes or the discrepancies between countries is that the fact of the matter is these drugs can be produced and sold for less than they are being sold for and so that's to our first point second point that the four patents, four keeping patents made was that they are the sole the main incentive for companies to continue producing or inventing and developing these drugs and I feel that that's not the sole incentive I mean with without like the like such access to high profits there's still some demand for these products because they are in many cases life-saving or necessary for many people to live and in addition to these patents existing to incentivize research and allow exclusive rights to a single company this in turn limits the collaboration that could potentially happen between multiple firms which would then advance research and development so in conclusion because of like these outrageous prices and like a skewed focus on some of the drugs that are chosen to be produced this is just patents create sort of an unacceptable problem in the prices of these drugs when they hit the market and it's true that these drugs do take tens of years to develop and research and make it to the market and that it can cost millions or billions of dollars but when it comes down to it these drugs are there to improve people's lives and often times even save them too so eliminating patents would lower prices and make these drugs more affordable to the people who really need them thank you we want to talk about safety of the people one of the biggest things is if we do make certain things public domain like as stated we have the fear of the defense budget or defense innovation or anthrax what about other biological experiments or research done there every year bacteria become stronger and stronger and we have to build create medicines that are able to keep up with their evolution and their adaptation to our bacterial what if people use that for other negative reasons anthrax was a common bacteria that was used and made into a chemical or bacterial weapon later on what would happen if that would happen now if all of our biological or pharmaceutical understanding of antibiotics or anything like that or especially diseases or specialty vaccines were used against us safety is our biggest priority argument of price of drugs as stated before other countries do have it cheaper other countries also have pans as well differently as we said before their FDA or their bureau for investigating drugs are not looking into adding these market exclusivities which are not pans pans are already mostly expired by the time that is produced or actually being sold it's the countries and the government the government is what we have to reform not the patents we have to reform the FDA higher inspections yes it makes it hard but pans allow small businesses and workers to work around it and the orphan drugs is the main reason that these small diseases with only having 20 30 100,000 because they have incentive from the FDA the seven years of market exclusivity gives them enough time to sell the drug in such a long time at such a high price that they do make money back and able to invest into other drugs because they don't have just one drug going at a time they'll have multiple because maybe one will be the golden pill many will be a bust that's why the amount of money that we do gain during these studies and during the research and during the profits do actually go back to research for every one pill the million dollar pill that actually is produced there are many failures that have to be reinvented and take years of study research and creation we would like to say that yes pans is a clinical or was a basic part of the United States throughout all of its history and it should still remain I feel like we should reform different things we should have the government interact and negotiate better with the pharmaceutical companies we should look at the FDA inspecting the drugs more closely and also talking about the market exclusivity and also safety we should make sure that the people are safe not only when it comes to what other people can do with these drugs but also can we give it to our people and we so far have been doing a great job with that yes we can always get better and that's what we want to work on but pans should remain thank you I want to thank both sides this has been a really interesting debate I've been to a bunch of these I participated in one of them I'm lost badly but I think that this was probably the closest debate that I've ever personally observed here at the economics department we believe that the pro side led out with a really strong argument of not just saying what's wrong with the system but suggesting an alternative on how many of those problems can be addressed the against side and countered with a lot of really great research into how the system actually works and I think that they should probably be commended for having in many ways the better research argument in terms of how patents work and what exact issues here are the result of patents versus the FDA versus the market structure that was a really really strong argument that was very persuasive to us but at the end of the day we felt that the against side never adequately rebutted the initial argument of the pro side that they could that an alternative system could potentially yield better outcomes and so we want to give a very very close win to the pro side first when you read the names of the competitors and their background was impressive you see the mix of freshman, junior we don't have any senior on the team I was wow that's really impressive we can imagine how that would include in three years excellent so continue to be very energetic members of the club and please let us know how it can help thanks to the moderator you did an excellent job and actually you had the debaters who are very corporate thank you very much and from Toy Judges thanks again for helping us to I don't know how we would have done thanks again the other program to give the awards hey that was a lot of fun it's every year not to criticize past debaters present company included who did a wonderful job but it just does seem to me every year these debates get better and better I don't know are you guys learning from the past or is this just the world is getting better all the time and if you look at the undergraduates in this department it gives you some reason for hope some of you may remember my late dog Beowulf he died a couple days after the presidential election 2016 he rolled over and he looked at me he said no I can't go on he obviously was not paying attention to our undergraduates and this crop of undergraduates is particularly impressive I'm really looking forward to working with you guys some of you may not recognize me because I'm here without my dog I was our new dog Corduroy my wife stole him just as I was coming back from I was in a debate this morning at western New England as I was coming back she was pulling down the driveway and I got out of the car got out of the car and I waved and she just waved and I said what about Corduroy and she said I'm taking him with me so I'm alone but I'm with friends so thank you, thank you all very much as Leon said this is the best day of the year at UMass Amherst Economics Department because this is the day when we get to not only celebrate all the great undergraduates but hear the next crop of great undergraduates so thank you all and we get to meet some parents and some of the old friends thank you for coming back and thank you for visiting us for the first time or at least the first time that I've seen you or the first time in the last week whatever okay we have a bunch of awards and we're going to start with the as is in keeping with the presence of the alums we're going to start with the economics alumni award for distinguished service this is granted by the economics alumni advisory board to students who have contributed to UMass community particularly to the Department of Economics now that John heard left we can say we don't care about the rest of UMass Amherst community all we care about is the economics department so I could almost strike some of the rest but still this is a real pleasure because I've known the two winners for a few years past debaters leaders of the economics club and they are very well deserving of moving on to do great things in the future the first one is Matthew Harman if he would well well he's not here I don't see him do you see him no he's not here okay well Matthew Harman is a third term governor of the undergraduate economics club and he's going off to the center for economics and policy research in Washington this summer okay that's pretty cool next comes Harry Walsh who you all know because he moderated the debate Harry is from Attleboro Mass and at UMass he is the governor of the undergraduate economics club coordinating the next edition of MOUGE the master's undergraduate journal of economics and he will be starting full time at Remi the regional economic modeling which was founded by one of our colleagues in the past where he will continue to develop skills in statistical modeling and he moderated the debate very well thank you thank you Harry next we have the economics alumni award for outstanding achievement which is granted by the economics alumni advisory board to a student who has demonstrated outstanding achievement either academically or within service to the university or community obviously there's a lot of overlap in these categories and this goes to Mark Ambrose Mark is a graduating senior studying economics and political science he served on the undergraduate economics board of governors and is part of the Alpha Chai Roe fraternity and he brought his parents so welcome to you thank you for coming the economics writing award is presented to the student with the best paper in economics there's overlap between this and another paper award and this goes to Jacob Edel who is here with his parents and Jacob has been involved with the UMass theater guild since his first semester way to go Jacob yes yes so stick around the treasurer being an economics major he is of course made the treasurer for a year and a half and he's worked as a researcher in political science for the last two semesters will forgive him that because he's bringing skills from there to us so it's important thank you Jacob and welcome to parents next out of order E.W. Eldridge junior memorial scholarship this is given established in 1966 wow for the purpose of the awarding scholarships to worthy and exceptional economics students and I can tell you this year's winner is exceptional Anya Conte is Conte is graduating with a dual degree in economics and mathematics currently finishing work on a thesis to analyze sustainable development projects and next year she will be pursuing a master's in statistics at the London school of economics after which she hopes to work in the fields of climate change and sustainable development and no doubt will save the world she obviously is too busy to make it today sorry Anya next we have but she should get out of the course next we get the highest academic achievement award this is presented to a junior or senior with a top GPA within the major and this one it goes to Conor Bond who well okay Conor is not here either but he has a good line here he's a junior economics major with a minor in political science and if he could meet on any economist for coffee it would be John Maynard Keynes so obviously he got a good education in UMass okay next we have Debra Finnegan family scholarship set up economics majors in good academic standing made possible by generous donation of Debra Finnegan a parent of economics department majors this goes to Cooper Heilman who is notable because he has a really good reason for not being here he's in Copenhagen do his junior abroad so give him applause anyway next we have the Jacqueline Dorfman scholarship for women set up for women studying economics in good academic standing and made possible by the generous donation of Jacqueline Dorfman class of 1982 and this goes to Jeané Celestan who's here with I think her mother yes yes Jeané is going off to the American Economics Association summer program after graduation and hopes to study get a PhD in economics maybe here and thank you to mom and now the James Kindle award awarded to an economics student with a commitment to social issues of public policy concerns strong writing skills and a record of excellence in economic history all things important to professor James Kindle and my colleague Carol Heim will proceed from here thanks so first of all I'm just going to show you professor Kindle who is a very wonderful person I'm going to leave this up here for anyone who wants to have a look at him as professor Friedman said the Kindle prize is awarded to a student who has a commitment to social issues or public policy concerns strong writing skills and or a record of excellence in economic history professor Kindle taught in the economics department from 1967 until 1998 he also served as department chair for three years and was the undergraduate program director for many years he passed away in 2003 professor Kindle was an extraordinary person who was appreciated tremendously by his students and colleagues it was actually one of his former students Tammy Murphy who put a lot of energy into helping getting the prize to get the prize set up in 2004 professor Kindle spent countless hours teaching and advising students students and colleagues knew that they could always count on his wisdom his sense of balance and perspective and his combination of unshakable principles and genuine open-mindedness he treated everyone with the utmost respect fairness and decency I know that many many students benefited greatly from his teaching and advising and from his commitment to our undergraduate program he also shared his ideas about teaching with his colleagues including me and those ideas were always valuable remembering how he lived his life continues to be an inspiration to all of us in the economics department very fortunate enough to know him and those who weren't so I'm very pleased to announce that the recipient of this year's Kindle prize is Megan Dunn Megan's one of my students this semester so I'm especially happy for her and I know she's well deserving of it thank you Carol if I may add just one point about Megan she's a senior finance and economics dual degree with a minor in Spanish and she's receiving the Eisenberg citizens first certificate which emphasized the importance of community service and giving back so thank you very much Megan so the John Hubby Scholarship set up for economics majors in good academic standing and made possible a generous donation of John Hubby class of 84 currently a partner at KPMG which means that he came here when I left I hope there was nothing personal involved in that and this goes to Robert Heck who is not here on top of being a oh right yeah he's not here for good reason let me tell you on top of being a student at UMass Robert Heck is the owner of Bob Heck Entertainment DJ Lighting Photo Booth in Pittsfield Mass he intends to get his masters in public policy hopes to work in economic development to help revitalize depressed areas in western Massachusetts he currently lives in Pittsfield with his wife Jennifer and his two daughters Kendall and Ashley and he had to drive them to dance today so and he was also doing a radio show but in between driving them doing the radio show and then driving back and picking them up again I think our undergraduate chief undergraduate advisor Val Voorhees who is a great person to have around she's wonderful she should stand up get applause yeah come on Val can appreciate being the mom taxi okay next we have the Ward McCarthy scholarship for interns and this is made possible by the generosity we have one winner of this so far and one not yet available so we're going to hold off on this one and then we're up to the Warritt Scholarship this scholarship was made possible by the generous donation of Rose oh okay so we have for the Ward McCarthy present two students and we've got only one so far chosen completing an internship during the 2018 Calendia and this goes to Antonia Morini who is right here what are you doing your internship okay Antonia is going to be working this summer at the Dorchester food co-op where she will be helping to feed the working class and others in Massachusetts it will eventually be feeding so she will be helping to feed them yes thank you are you talking first ah okay and then we have two Warritt Scholarships this scholarship was made possible by the generous donation of Rose Mary Warritt I guess of 62 Ms. Warritt once came last year at some point she came visiting I got to spend an absolutely delightful half hour chatting with her in my office she travels the world and knows all this really interesting stuff about finance and economic development in different countries she's worked as a journalist and now she's an economic analyst has her own company and this scholarship was set up which is in good academic standards with a preference given to females to women studying international economics and we have two winners of this the first one is Jin Tang Zheng who's coming up and and Jin whose parents are too far away to come to this certainly on short notice and they have to work is a senior at UMass who will be graduating in 15 days in in the future she would like to work as an economic consultant for an international company that way she could work on what she's passionate about and have opportunities to travel which would fit perfectly with what Rose Mary Warritt does her parents live far from Amherst they have to work so she should not be able to come to the ceremony but please tell them we miss them thank you and finally we have Victoria Abram Abram Chuck Abram Chuck who's father is here thank you, thank you so much in the fall of 2018 Victoria will be starting her junior year here so we've got one more year of you as an economics legal studies and Spanish triple major oh my god I feel so inadequate compared to our undergraduates her passion lies not only in her acting not in your but I'm going to say not only in your academic course work but in people with a penchant for public policy she plans to use what she learns to foster real social change currently she's interested in variety of policy areas including but not limited to education labor finance and markets so another world changer and thank you so much and thank you for visiting we have an arrival Matthew Harmon yes say you he's off to separate to change the world and make it a lot better good for you okay thank you okay one more point to mention Harry Walsh will be doing the senior speech senior talk who's doing the senior talk you are sorry sorry Matthew is also going to do the senior talk at graduation thank you I knew it was one of the two of you okay could we have one final big round of applause for these great students and all the work they do thank you so much