Drugs???!!! Oh, my...I'm a semi-retired neurologist. So allow me to rant in answer to your question
re: drug stocks...first let me ask you a question. Do you have any idea how much it now costs the average drug company from patent to making subject drug available the first day at your local pharmacy? Take a guess
starting at millions, say 10 0r 30 or 55 or 150 or 250 (million, I mean)...try 450. Now I next pose for you the question
of who is going to pay for all these wonders that were the subject of a cover article in a recent Time Magazine.
Medicare does not pay for drugs. Neither party had that one clearly ironed out before this last joke of an
election. So say you come down with Martin Sheen's charachter's disease in "The West Wing"...it is MS, and the
standard treatment if you are lucky enought to have insurance coverage is a Avonex, a weekly shot, made by Biogen, at ~$850/month, and there is a new competitor from Europe breathing down their backs...Will they
lose their markets...answer in the wings...did they make their $450 million investment back with interest...
Conclusion form one in the trenches for 25 years... there is no way Merck is going to sell all those wonder drugs
at prices and for long enough for you to put your money into pe 40+ stocks...JMHO.
Good luck with any of 'em, Merck, Biogen, Amgen, Pfizer, J&J, fill in the blank
jim black |
