Jeff Wu: Pharma R&D depends on 20-year patent monopolies
Jeff Woo · a16z Podcast | Nootropics and the Best Version of Your Brain, Yourself · Jan 2, 2019 · at 5:19
Jeff Wu, co-founder of Nootrobox, explains why pharmaceutical companies focus on novel patentable drugs rather than off-patent cognitive supplements.
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“The pharmaceutical industry is a very interesting one where their business model is predicated on the government giving the company, you know, a twenty-year monopoly on different compounds. Therefore, there is an economic incentive for pharmaceutical companies to now put hundreds of millions to a billion dollars into R&D to bring new compounds to market.”
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