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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (8244)	8/22/1999 12:05:00 PM
From: flatsville	Respond to of 9818

Mag Dog-- You wrote: >>>Anyone have a link refering to the percentage of ingredients which the US imports to produce their drugs? (80% comes to mind)<<< Earlier this year I literally spent hours and hours looking for the answer to what at the time seemed like a simple question as stated above. I searched far and wide...everything from Dept. of Commerce to American Chemical Society, generic drug trade associations, to RX 2000 (you name it, I went there) and back again. What I do remember is that at that time: There was a difference in the import ingredient percentage between generic prescription and "name-brand" prescription. 70% for one, 80% for the other. Which is which I can't remember. Given the way the import data is reported (on the web) it was impossible to separate out what percentage of ingredients go to "drug" manufacture as opposed to "health and beauty" products manufacture. There's virtually no way to determine the country/countries of origin of any particular ingredient let alone important active or excipient ingredients used in pharmaceutical manufacture. Perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle in determining U.S. pharmaceutical industry's vulnerability. So after days and days of getting nowhere I gave up. The end result was that I had more questions than answers and the data was impossible to work with. It was around this time that I found a reference to the CIA standing committee on the chemical industry abroad. (Hey, maybe they have the info. Call 'em. Let me know what they say. <ggg>) There may be more and easier data to work with now that it is later in the game. I may try again. If you find anything interesting please let me know.