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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Archie Meeties who wrote (8223)	8/13/2009 8:33:31 AM
From: skinowski	Respond to of 42652

There are a lot interdependencies out there... it is a complex world. If pharma companies were on the top of the world, their stocks would be soaring. Check what PFE is doing over the past 10 years. Down from 50 in 1999 to the low teens at the recent low. Guess not that glitters is gold.

To: Archie Meeties who wrote (8223)	8/19/2009 2:12:17 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Respond to of 42652

FYI drug companies use about 2x as much revenue on advertising as they do on research 1 - So what? If it was 10 times as much or 100 times as much, it would still be true that reducing profit from new drugs would reduce the incentive to develop them. 2 - I've seen the figures quoted for "marketing and overhead". Even marketing isn't just advertising, it includes for example giving free samples. And the other overhead items included may have little or nothing to do with advertising. The vast majority of cutting edge research defining new receptors or intercellular mechanisms of drug activity come from...government sponsored research. The basic research is mostly paid for by governments, but basic research doesn't get you drugs. You need applied research, product development, and then extensive and expensive product testing. (and then you have to market the new drug, otherwise the whole point is pointless, so its not like reducing marketing expenses would clearly increase innovation, the marketing cost is mostly irrelevant to the point about how profits motivated R&D and testing, and may even work the other way, if profits are lower, the effort and costs to market some drugs may not be worth it, so the drugs might not be developed partially because of the fact that the marketing is expensive)

To: Archie Meeties who wrote (8223)	1/22/2010 7:47:55 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 42652

On the Pharma Gravy Train 13 Jan 2010 12:18 pm Today, I became a big beneficiary of the enormous marketing budgets of pharmaceutical companies. I know many of y'all suspected it all along. But sadly, there was no massive check waiting for me in the mail today. No, what happened is, I went to the pulmonologist for a lung function test, because my asthma has been steadily getting worse for months. The bad news is what I already knew--I am no longer well controlled enough with Singulair and a rescue inhaler, and I need to go on inhaled steroids. The good news is that I left with an armful of free samples, so that I can figure out which inhaled steroid works for me most cost-effectively. That's courtesy of those bloated marketing budgets you hear so many complaints about, more than half of which go to free samples. This isn't such a great deal for the pharmaceutical industry, since otherwise I'd be paying full freight for one of their products. All it does for the pharma firms is buy them a seat at the table--a chance to win my business. But it's a great deal for me, and millions of consumers like me who get a chance to try multiple products before we commit to one. One of the things that bugs activists about this practice is that the pharmaceutical companies record the cost of the marketing as the full price of the product, not the cost of producing it... meganmcardle.theatlantic.com