Don't forget that if corporations are people, then this might be grounds for the corporate death penalty.
The way that would work is the Philips name would be retired and all patents, copyrights and trademarks would be released to the public domain. All ownership would end the same way as when someone dies, and assets would be distributed to next of kin. The company might be broken up and sold at auction, with the proceeds donated to shareholders and any other owners/investors. Or parts of it could be sold to other companies to pay for lawsuits and other costs, like when splitting up a company under antitrust laws.
Looks like Philips has a market cap of just over $20 billion. Shifting that intellectual property to the public could start an open source revolution in medical research. The ripple effects of that are hard to predict, but might put more of a focus on cures than treatments.
We could see gene therapy for the primary inherited conditions arriving years earlier than expected. Conditions that at least 10% of the population have to deal with every single day that affect quality of life and aren't being addressed by for-profit corporations. Imagine the relief for mental health that would come through these cures, reducing the isolation and alienation for the people who have been forced to internalize their situations because the larger population is oblivious to their experiences.
Gene therapies start around $1 million per person. But the main cost lies in research, not application. Why are we performing medical research under a for-profit model? We didn't use to.
Recent trends show that large corporations are focusing on profits over the health of their customers. If they've abandoned their charters, then maybe it's time for alternative approaches. IMHO the priority today should be large epidemiological studies to provide big data for AI to spot the correlations which lead to cures. But the astronomical profits of big pharma have diverted those funds to the point that those companies are slowing progress and increasing costs for all of us.
The way that would work is the Philips name would be retired and all patents, copyrights and trademarks would be released to the public domain. All ownership would end the same way as when someone dies, and assets would be distributed to next of kin. The company might be broken up and sold at auction, with the proceeds donated to shareholders and any other owners/investors. Or parts of it could be sold to other companies to pay for lawsuits and other costs, like when splitting up a company under antitrust laws.
Looks like Philips has a market cap of just over $20 billion. Shifting that intellectual property to the public could start an open source revolution in medical research. The ripple effects of that are hard to predict, but might put more of a focus on cures than treatments.
We could see gene therapy for the primary inherited conditions arriving years earlier than expected. Conditions that at least 10% of the population have to deal with every single day that affect quality of life and aren't being addressed by for-profit corporations. Imagine the relief for mental health that would come through these cures, reducing the isolation and alienation for the people who have been forced to internalize their situations because the larger population is oblivious to their experiences.
Gene therapies start around $1 million per person. But the main cost lies in research, not application. Why are we performing medical research under a for-profit model? We didn't use to.
Recent trends show that large corporations are focusing on profits over the health of their customers. If they've abandoned their charters, then maybe it's time for alternative approaches. IMHO the priority today should be large epidemiological studies to provide big data for AI to spot the correlations which lead to cures. But the astronomical profits of big pharma have diverted those funds to the point that those companies are slowing progress and increasing costs for all of us.