Second, drug development is geared toward maximizing profit, not social benefit, which skews efforts directed at the creation of medicines that are essential to human welfare. Because the poor have so little money to spend, drug companies, under current arrangements, have little incentive to do research on the diseases that afflict them.
如今，药品之所以难以获得，主要是拜两大问题所赐。其中之一是药品成本太高；或者，更正确地说，是药品要价太高，而生产成本只是要价的一小部分。第二个问题是药品开发的着眼点是利润最大化，而不是社会效益最大化，这使得药品开发倾向于创造对人类福利至关重要的品种。而穷人根本没有多少钱可花，因此，在现有安排下，制药公司根本没什么激励研究折磨穷人的疾病。