The "award system" for drug development is full of problems.
Who makes the call as to how much to award? Who decides who the award goes to (very few drugs are develop by one group alone)? Who decides when a drug is actually better than existing treatments?
Insurance companies already reward innovation. When a new drug hits the market, insurance companies collect and review all the data available and decide on how much access they'll provide their customers with. This analysis includes looking at a drug's impact on total cost of care.
Right now, the insurance companies' decisions are skewed by the fact that the new drugs have to be compared against the price of generic drugs. That means that unless the new treatment is orders of magnitude better, it won't be much of a cost savings until long after the inventors should have been rewarded for their innovation.
Who makes the call as to how much to award? Who decides who the award goes to (very few drugs are develop by one group alone)? Who decides when a drug is actually better than existing treatments?
Insurance companies already reward innovation. When a new drug hits the market, insurance companies collect and review all the data available and decide on how much access they'll provide their customers with. This analysis includes looking at a drug's impact on total cost of care.