Another result of the Peter Singer/Toronto study on dispersion of technology in the developing world – and on the developing world’s ability to innovate – is this big meeting in London to advance the novel point that big technology companies might not be putting much resource into advancing the developing world. They contrasted some companies with others (Apple turned its website into a billboard for Tsunami aid, while Microsoft had nothing on its site), but the big point was familiar: “Only 16 of the 1,393 new drugs marketed between 1975 and 1999 by western companies were for tropical and developing country diseases. The west accounts for 97 per cent of the biotechnology sector’s $47bn (36bn, 25bn) of annual revenues.”
Labels: Apple rocks, biotechnology, dispersing technology, failure to use science for good, London, no money in the poor