We've Already Got Socialized Medicine (US)

[Hunter]

We've Already Got Socialized Medicine

… it’s just socialized for pharmaceutical companies and certain researchers, not patients.

That cancer patients should be criticized for depending on socialized medicine on the consumer end conceals the fact that scientists depend on taxpayers to subsidize their careers, while developing many of the technologies in academic settings and then profiteering them out. The high profile patent battle over CRISPR gene editing system was one of these situations, which resulted in a mix of philanthropic and public money paying for the invention of a technology that is now enrapt in a web of financial dealings not to mention bitter rivalries. Editas Medicine, a spinout of Harvard and MIT’s Broad Institute, which claims exclusive rights to medical applications of CRISPR-Cas9, signed a highly profitable $737 million deal with cancer T-cell company Juno Therapeutics.