5 ms·

Well of course, I don't know why people find this surprising. You are not paying for the cost of manufacturing the single individual pill. You are paying for th

Well of course, I don't know why people find this surprising. You are not paying for the cost of manufacturing the single individual pill. You are paying for the cost of researching it and testing it, as well as a thousand other drugs that didn't make it to market. If the US market didn't pay for these drugs, they wouldn't still be cheaper in India. They likely wouldn't exist at all.

tracker1 11y ago
Bullshit... marketing budgets outstrip research, development and manufacturing all by very large margins... in most big pharma companies it's over 80-90% of the budget.
- Dwolb 11y ago
  >Bullshit... marketing budgets outstrip research, development and manufacturing all by very large margins... in most big pharma companies it's over 80-90% of the budget. I was pretty skeptical of this claim being true so I had to do a quick internet search. I'm surprised to find there was some truth to the first half of the comment but the second claim appears to be wrong. [1] [1] http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/16472/do-typical-modern-pharmaceutical-firms-spend-more-on-marketing-than-on-rd http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/16472/do-typical...
  - tracker1 11y ago
    I stand corrected, but would be surprised if other expenses weren't really disguised marketing/sales.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  I don't recall seeing any advertisements for this specific drug. Regardless, I don't see how this disproves my point for drugs in general. If investing in advertisement increases their profit, then logically they should do it. It's not like the advertisements are taking away money that would otherwise go to research. They are increasing the total amount of revenue, some of which will go to even more research.
  - mikeyouse 11y ago
    If they advertised the specific drug, they'd have to list all of the side effects and the ad becomes much less sexy.. Instead they just advertise the condition and let patients decide; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZOrRItIrYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZOrRItIrYs
venomsnake 11y ago
Except the pharma companies: Spend resources on cancer "treatments" that give two more months of survival compared to placebo (with insane side effects though), have marketing budgets twice bigger than their R&D, try to push statins into baby milk (I hope this is sarcastic, for now) and totally abandoned antibiotics. We also have patent extensions and other nasty tricks. While the current model is somewhat effective, I think that direct NIH grants to develop drugs with the IP left in the public domain is a better approach. Also that way we can funnel more money into the pockets of the scientists.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  It's hard to know exactly how effective a drug like that will be before testing it, at which point most of the development cost will have already been spent, and there's no point holding it back from market. And a large number of these drugs being developed over time has really increased survival rates for various cancers Marketing budgets aren't really relevant. They wouldn't spend money on marketing if it didn't bring them even more money in return. It's not like that money is being taken from money that would otherwise go to research. If anything it increases the amount of money which can go to research. > I think that direct NIH grants to develop drugs with the IP left in the public domain is a better approach I don't think these models are mutually exclusive. You can have government research and private research at the same time. It's not like there is limited amount of research that can be done, and private companies are hogging it all. And there are things like antibiotic research, which you mentioned, that aren't profitable but are necessary.
grecy 11y ago
And yet American pharmaceutical companies make every more billions in profit every year, while Indian pharmaceutical companies do not. I think it's easy to see where that price difference is going.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  I remember reading that pharmaceutical companies were that profitable compared to other businesses in other industries. If they weren't, then everyone could just invest in new pharmaceutical companies and make more profit than investing anywhere else. Regardless, that has nothing to do with anything. I don't understand why HN views someone making a profit as proof that they are committing some evil. It's possible they can make a profit and be a net benefit to the world.
  - srean 11y ago
    Making a profit in a free market is not evil, but these guys don't play in a free market. Its a comically and extremely protected market where they whine their heart out saying "we need to be protected, because life is hard etc etc" while pocketing one of the highest rates of profits and thinking nothing of spending big of marketing. From their accounts and their behavior they look far from a group that is worthy of the protection they receive.
  - grecy 11y ago
    I didn't say there was anything evil about making profit. It's really easy to see why Americans pay so much for Health care/insurance, medicine, education, etc. etc.
ascorbic 11y ago
Pharma companies massively exaggerate the cost of developing new drugs. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21679203-high-cost-rd-used-explain-why-drugs-giants-merge-and-why-they-must-charge http://www.economist.com/news/business/21679203-high-cost-rd...
kbatten 11y ago
Alternatively India has a lot of smart people and they can develop drugs if US companies don't. How much are US companies subsidized by both money and Indian scientists, and how would one determine this? Frankly I'm not sure where to go to find out the exact facts. I think you are right, but I'm not so sure anymore.
- narrator 11y ago
  Here's a great article about how Russia has developed a lot of useful drugs that are largely ignored in the west: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-descended-upon-psychopharmacology/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-des... Another example: The French developed Tianeptine[1] and it's as effective as SSRIs as an anti-depressant, with fewer side effects, but it's largely unknown in the U.S. Point being, even if they did develop great drugs, you'd never hear about them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine
  - delbel 11y ago
    Another example, $1 cure for lung cancer developed by Cuba with 25+ years of peer reviewed hard science backing it http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/09/29/cuba-developed-a-1-lung-cancer-vaccine-that-works-but-we-cant-have-it/ http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/09/29/cuba-developed-a-1-lun...
    - optimusclimb 11y ago
      http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/28/cuba-lung-cancer-vaccine-cimavax_n_7462172.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/28/cuba-lung-cancer-vac... http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/19/cuba.cancer.vaccine/index.html?iref=24hours http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/19/cuba.cancer.vaccine/ind... > A Phase II trial from 2008 showed lung cancer patients who received the vaccine lived an average of four to six months longer than those who didn’t. > CimaVax EGF does not prevent or cure lung cancer. It is a therapeutic vaccine which stimulates the patient's body to make an antibody against the epidermal growth factor (EGF), which is a key driver causing lung cancer cells to grow. Thanks for sharing, I had never heard of this, but to call it a "$1 cure for lung cancer" is a bit misleading.
lifeformed 11y ago
Why the disparity though? Why not have it cost $500 in both places? And why aren't there arbitrageurs taking advantage of this?
- anupamsr 11y ago
  If it did India would just reject the patent. Medicines command a special place in market economics and hence all the confusion. For example, there is whole segment of market in India that buys only Ayurvedic products, and there are big cosmetic companies that ensure their product is categorized as Ayurvedic instead of cosmetic.
- slavik81 11y ago
  > Why not have it cost $500 in both places? Why are student movie tickets cheaper than general admission? The term for this is 'price discrimination'. The short answer is because many Indians can't afford to pay $500, and many Americans can afford to pay more than $500.
- robbiep 11y ago
  Medications are not easily ameniable to arbitrage as they are not classified as equivalent goods with regard to customs- special licenses are required (often) to import them. Plus, there are quality issues with third world drugs (which may or may not be valid) which rear their head when buying sight unseen
- replicatorblog 11y ago
  It's a matter of market clearing prices. A gross oversimplification, but $4 is the price the market can bear. Charging $5 in the developing world isn't much different than charging $500—they just won't sell. Arbitrage is attempted, but the FDA is pretty good about stopping imports at port. Also, the primary distribution channels are fastidious about not taking goods from other locales so the market is grey/black and not worth the effort in most cases. The people who would buy drugs from India are probably using means-tested assistance programs and can't pay the huge sums insurers can.
srean 11y ago
> You are paying for the cost of researching it and testing it More accurately, you are paying higher because pharma can hire congressmen and senators > If the US market didn't pay for these drugs, they wouldn't still be cheaper in India. They likely wouldn't exist at all. Doubt that much, its quite a strong claim and requires strong evidence. My beef is that we have never even come close to testing this hypothesis One of the oft repeated justification for the absurd levels of IP protection and patent extensions that pharma enjoys is the huge cost of trials. But if huge development costs are the reason for these protections to exist, guess what, these costs will continue to remain huge. Its just self perpetuating. Patents are primarily a preemptive measure against a hypothetical scenario. The hypothesis is that unless market pressures are cordoned off, innovation will stop. It is a believable hypothesis but not a quantitative one, and this exactly where we need a quantitative one. How many years exactly does one need to subvert the market so that a satisfactory level of innovation is maintained ? Nobody knows an authoritative answer. In these scenario what we need is a feedback system, and pretty much the only scalable and fair apparatus that we have for such feedback on economic affairs is the market. So rather than subverting the market, market should be explicitly and actively involved to work out this trade-off. How exactly this is to be done needs to be worked out. There could be a futures market on patents on drugs undergoing testing: competitors can promise to buy the patent to the (drug,usecase) pair at a particular price (even if its a dud) and if the owner decides not to sell the owner pay a particular compensation. Such measures will spread the risk. There should be mechanisms for a company to raise money for testing in lieu of rights over the product. The initial period of validity of a patent should be short, like 3~6 years, following which the patent is on the market. Entities can bid to bring the patent to public domain. The owner(s) bids to retain it. Whoever wins gets the balance. Of course the "bring it to public domain" bidders will bid less because profitability is less when its in the public domain, but market decides who gets to own it. If the owner(s) think they can still extract lots of profit from the drug, bid high. We should stop handing out blank checks without a feedback loop, that is just bad design. [p.s. fun to watch the votes go up and down :)]
- aravindet 11y ago
  srean: A system where market forces decide the level or duration of patent protection is an excellent idea. Could you share anything you’ve read or written that elaborates on this?
robbiep 11y ago
This argument is pure propeganda from the pharmaceutical companies. The modern world of lifesaving pharmaceuticals exists despite the American market's attempts to subvert it, not due to its largesse
- Houshalter 11y ago
  Your comment is not an argument. You are just stating that you disagree with nothing to back it up. It adds nothing to discussion. And accusing me of "propeganda" is just juvenile and uncalled for. But if you really believe that, hen why are so many of these drugs developed in America? Why aren't other countries inventing way better drugs?
  - robbiep 11y ago
    My comment may not be a persuasive argument, but either is yours. Where are your facts? Your referenced points? You state just as much opinion as I do. So, let's go through a quick run-down of the 'major' pharmaceutical companies of the world, and where they are headquartered. Company Revenue (USD) Headquarters Novartis 53.6 Bn Switzerland Roche 47.8 Bn Switzerland Sanofi 36.9 Bn France GSK 34.9 Bn UK AstraZeneca 26 Bn UK/Sweden Bayer 43.4 bn Germany Baxter 15.3bn US Pfizer 49 Bn US Merck 42.23 Bn US BMS 18.8 bn US So, 4 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies by revenue are headquartered in the US. By Revenue, those 4 account for 125.3 Bn out of a pie of 367.9 Bn; or 34%. It is not easy to get a list of the number of drugs under clinical trial, or the number of drugs that were recently brought to market by various manufacturers; and, as a side matter, a number of the more innovative drugs brought to market recently were all developed by small pharmaceutical companies (Boceprevir, Telaprevir, Imatinib, Ipilumimab) that were later acquired by the big boys. So a small pharma company did the innovating, usually funded by a university or the product of particuarly profound insights by PhD students; turned into successful drugs; run through to the stage 3 trial stage and then, once all the development costs are done and dusted, acquired for a discount price of the predicted future revenue stream So tell me, where are all the drugs being developed by america? I would say the rest of the world is more than pulling it's weight. In fact, given rough population parity between the European first world and the United states, it could in fact be argued that the United states is not pulling it's weight. I await your reasoned response
hrktb 11y ago
> You are paying for the cost of researching it and testing it, as well as a thousand other drugs that didn't make it to market. Trying to think of other straightforward instances where a tremendous cost is spent on researching and testing, and directly affect human well being. One example would be meat farming. As far as I know raising pigs or chicken evolved a lot in our lifetimes, extensive research was done on how to produce mor meat, there's oversight by a public agency and it is consumed by human so there is a decent amount of safety check and oversight. Yet meat is cheap. The more research that went into it, the cheaper it got. Provided meat as a product is more stable and less dangerous than drugs, I still think that it doesn't explain why meat would become cheaper while drug price should stay high and pharmatical firms should have extra protection to keep their prices high. We're not paying for research, we're paying for monopolies.
- indians_pro 11y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/3ynwk2/factory_farming_a_modern_day_holocaust/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/3ynwk2/factory_... i recommend u go through this with an open mind and no bias on the source. the research might not be on what u think it is.
  - hrktb 11y ago
    Thanks for the link. I am mostly aware of how bad farming is in regards of how animals are treated or what effect it can have on the surrounding environment. My entry to this rabbit hole was the huge pig shit lakes near some of the most industrialized pig farms. From there there is no illusion that most research would go into more 'humane' treatments, but at the same time there is a strong enough incentive to have balanced medication to keep the animals alive while leaving as few substances in the meat as possible. I'm not sure that research is moral or goes in the right direction, but I just suppose there is a decent amount of it given the scale of the market.
- replicatorblog 11y ago
  It's a matter of scale. Tyson and Cargil don't spend several billions of dollars to develop a new cut of bacon, essentially one SKU at the supermarket. However, Pfizer and Sanofi will spend billions to create one new drug. Also, drugs do get super cheap once the patents expire. In fact, there are massive companies that do nothing but wait for patents to expire so they can make generics—take a look at Teva and Perrigo if you're curious about the model.
mc32 11y ago
This is somewhat similar to developing new semiconductor processes or CPU architectures. It costs a ton in R&D but once taped out, the individual cost is relatively small. However, as in semis, the developer manufacturer will also look at what the market will bear. And things are complicated in pharma by copy-cats and gov'ts who understandably look the other way when a manufacturer undercuts the original manufacturer/license holder... So they, the orig drugmakers, kind of make up this shortfall in economies where the market will bear higher prices, so, in essence, developed countries subsidize the pharma costs of developing economies. And perhaps that's not so bad, given the comparative resources.

tracker1 11y ago

Bullshit... marketing budgets outstrip research, development and manufacturing all by very large margins... in most big pharma companies it's over 80-90% of the budget.

Dwolb 11y ago
>Bullshit... marketing budgets outstrip research, development and manufacturing all by very large margins... in most big pharma companies it's over 80-90% of the budget. I was pretty skeptical of this claim being true so I had to do a quick internet search. I'm surprised to find there was some truth to the first half of the comment but the second claim appears to be wrong. [1] [1] http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/16472/do-typical-modern-pharmaceutical-firms-spend-more-on-marketing-than-on-rd http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/16472/do-typical...
- tracker1 11y ago
  I stand corrected, but would be surprised if other expenses weren't really disguised marketing/sales.
Houshalter 11y ago
I don't recall seeing any advertisements for this specific drug. Regardless, I don't see how this disproves my point for drugs in general. If investing in advertisement increases their profit, then logically they should do it. It's not like the advertisements are taking away money that would otherwise go to research. They are increasing the total amount of revenue, some of which will go to even more research.
- mikeyouse 11y ago
  If they advertised the specific drug, they'd have to list all of the side effects and the ad becomes much less sexy.. Instead they just advertise the condition and let patients decide; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZOrRItIrYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZOrRItIrYs

venomsnake 11y ago

Except the pharma companies: Spend resources on cancer "treatments" that give two more months of survival compared to placebo (with insane side effects though), have marketing budgets twice bigger than their R&D, try to push statins into baby milk (I hope this is sarcastic, for now) and totally abandoned antibiotics. We also have patent extensions and other nasty tricks. While the current model is somewhat effective, I think that direct NIH grants to develop drugs with the IP left in the public domain is a better approach. Also that way we can funnel more money into the pockets of the scientists.

Houshalter 11y ago
It's hard to know exactly how effective a drug like that will be before testing it, at which point most of the development cost will have already been spent, and there's no point holding it back from market. And a large number of these drugs being developed over time has really increased survival rates for various cancers Marketing budgets aren't really relevant. They wouldn't spend money on marketing if it didn't bring them even more money in return. It's not like that money is being taken from money that would otherwise go to research. If anything it increases the amount of money which can go to research. > I think that direct NIH grants to develop drugs with the IP left in the public domain is a better approach I don't think these models are mutually exclusive. You can have government research and private research at the same time. It's not like there is limited amount of research that can be done, and private companies are hogging it all. And there are things like antibiotic research, which you mentioned, that aren't profitable but are necessary.

grecy 11y ago

And yet American pharmaceutical companies make every more billions in profit every year, while Indian pharmaceutical companies do not. I think it's easy to see where that price difference is going.

Houshalter 11y ago
I remember reading that pharmaceutical companies were that profitable compared to other businesses in other industries. If they weren't, then everyone could just invest in new pharmaceutical companies and make more profit than investing anywhere else. Regardless, that has nothing to do with anything. I don't understand why HN views someone making a profit as proof that they are committing some evil. It's possible they can make a profit and be a net benefit to the world.
- srean 11y ago
  Making a profit in a free market is not evil, but these guys don't play in a free market. Its a comically and extremely protected market where they whine their heart out saying "we need to be protected, because life is hard etc etc" while pocketing one of the highest rates of profits and thinking nothing of spending big of marketing. From their accounts and their behavior they look far from a group that is worthy of the protection they receive.
- grecy 11y ago
  I didn't say there was anything evil about making profit. It's really easy to see why Americans pay so much for Health care/insurance, medicine, education, etc. etc.

ascorbic 11y ago

Pharma companies massively exaggerate the cost of developing new drugs. http://www.economist.com/news/business/21679203-high-cost-rd-used-explain-why-drugs-giants-merge-and-why-they-must-charge http://www.economist.com/news/business/21679203-high-cost-rd...

kbatten 11y ago

Alternatively India has a lot of smart people and they can develop drugs if US companies don't. How much are US companies subsidized by both money and Indian scientists, and how would one determine this? Frankly I'm not sure where to go to find out the exact facts. I think you are right, but I'm not so sure anymore.

narrator 11y ago
Here's a great article about how Russia has developed a lot of useful drugs that are largely ignored in the west: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-descended-upon-psychopharmacology/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-des... Another example: The French developed Tianeptine[1] and it's as effective as SSRIs as an anti-depressant, with fewer side effects, but it's largely unknown in the U.S. Point being, even if they did develop great drugs, you'd never hear about them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine
- delbel 11y ago
  Another example, $1 cure for lung cancer developed by Cuba with 25+ years of peer reviewed hard science backing it http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/09/29/cuba-developed-a-1-lung-cancer-vaccine-that-works-but-we-cant-have-it/ http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/09/29/cuba-developed-a-1-lun...
  - optimusclimb 11y ago
    http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/28/cuba-lung-cancer-vaccine-cimavax_n_7462172.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/28/cuba-lung-cancer-vac... http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/19/cuba.cancer.vaccine/index.html?iref=24hours http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/19/cuba.cancer.vaccine/ind... > A Phase II trial from 2008 showed lung cancer patients who received the vaccine lived an average of four to six months longer than those who didn’t. > CimaVax EGF does not prevent or cure lung cancer. It is a therapeutic vaccine which stimulates the patient's body to make an antibody against the epidermal growth factor (EGF), which is a key driver causing lung cancer cells to grow. Thanks for sharing, I had never heard of this, but to call it a "$1 cure for lung cancer" is a bit misleading.

lifeformed 11y ago

Why the disparity though? Why not have it cost $500 in both places? And why aren't there arbitrageurs taking advantage of this?

anupamsr 11y ago
If it did India would just reject the patent. Medicines command a special place in market economics and hence all the confusion. For example, there is whole segment of market in India that buys only Ayurvedic products, and there are big cosmetic companies that ensure their product is categorized as Ayurvedic instead of cosmetic.
slavik81 11y ago
> Why not have it cost $500 in both places? Why are student movie tickets cheaper than general admission? The term for this is 'price discrimination'. The short answer is because many Indians can't afford to pay $500, and many Americans can afford to pay more than $500.
robbiep 11y ago
Medications are not easily ameniable to arbitrage as they are not classified as equivalent goods with regard to customs- special licenses are required (often) to import them. Plus, there are quality issues with third world drugs (which may or may not be valid) which rear their head when buying sight unseen
replicatorblog 11y ago
It's a matter of market clearing prices. A gross oversimplification, but $4 is the price the market can bear. Charging $5 in the developing world isn't much different than charging $500—they just won't sell. Arbitrage is attempted, but the FDA is pretty good about stopping imports at port. Also, the primary distribution channels are fastidious about not taking goods from other locales so the market is grey/black and not worth the effort in most cases. The people who would buy drugs from India are probably using means-tested assistance programs and can't pay the huge sums insurers can.

srean 11y ago

> You are paying for the cost of researching it and testing it More accurately, you are paying higher because pharma can hire congressmen and senators > If the US market didn't pay for these drugs, they wouldn't still be cheaper in India. They likely wouldn't exist at all. Doubt that much, its quite a strong claim and requires strong evidence. My beef is that we have never even come close to testing this hypothesis One of the oft repeated justification for the absurd levels of IP protection and patent extensions that pharma enjoys is the huge cost of trials. But if huge development costs are the reason for these protections to exist, guess what, these costs will continue to remain huge. Its just self perpetuating. Patents are primarily a preemptive measure against a hypothetical scenario. The hypothesis is that unless market pressures are cordoned off, innovation will stop. It is a believable hypothesis but not a quantitative one, and this exactly where we need a quantitative one. How many years exactly does one need to subvert the market so that a satisfactory level of innovation is maintained ? Nobody knows an authoritative answer. In these scenario what we need is a feedback system, and pretty much the only scalable and fair apparatus that we have for such feedback on economic affairs is the market. So rather than subverting the market, market should be explicitly and actively involved to work out this trade-off. How exactly this is to be done needs to be worked out. There could be a futures market on patents on drugs undergoing testing: competitors can promise to buy the patent to the (drug,usecase) pair at a particular price (even if its a dud) and if the owner decides not to sell the owner pay a particular compensation. Such measures will spread the risk. There should be mechanisms for a company to raise money for testing in lieu of rights over the product. The initial period of validity of a patent should be short, like 3~6 years, following which the patent is on the market. Entities can bid to bring the patent to public domain. The owner(s) bids to retain it. Whoever wins gets the balance. Of course the "bring it to public domain" bidders will bid less because profitability is less when its in the public domain, but market decides who gets to own it. If the owner(s) think they can still extract lots of profit from the drug, bid high. We should stop handing out blank checks without a feedback loop, that is just bad design. [p.s. fun to watch the votes go up and down :)]

aravindet 11y ago
srean: A system where market forces decide the level or duration of patent protection is an excellent idea. Could you share anything you’ve read or written that elaborates on this?

robbiep 11y ago

This argument is pure propeganda from the pharmaceutical companies. The modern world of lifesaving pharmaceuticals exists despite the American market's attempts to subvert it, not due to its largesse

Houshalter 11y ago
Your comment is not an argument. You are just stating that you disagree with nothing to back it up. It adds nothing to discussion. And accusing me of "propeganda" is just juvenile and uncalled for. But if you really believe that, hen why are so many of these drugs developed in America? Why aren't other countries inventing way better drugs?
- robbiep 11y ago
  My comment may not be a persuasive argument, but either is yours. Where are your facts? Your referenced points? You state just as much opinion as I do. So, let's go through a quick run-down of the 'major' pharmaceutical companies of the world, and where they are headquartered. Company Revenue (USD) Headquarters Novartis 53.6 Bn Switzerland Roche 47.8 Bn Switzerland Sanofi 36.9 Bn France GSK 34.9 Bn UK AstraZeneca 26 Bn UK/Sweden Bayer 43.4 bn Germany Baxter 15.3bn US Pfizer 49 Bn US Merck 42.23 Bn US BMS 18.8 bn US So, 4 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies by revenue are headquartered in the US. By Revenue, those 4 account for 125.3 Bn out of a pie of 367.9 Bn; or 34%. It is not easy to get a list of the number of drugs under clinical trial, or the number of drugs that were recently brought to market by various manufacturers; and, as a side matter, a number of the more innovative drugs brought to market recently were all developed by small pharmaceutical companies (Boceprevir, Telaprevir, Imatinib, Ipilumimab) that were later acquired by the big boys. So a small pharma company did the innovating, usually funded by a university or the product of particuarly profound insights by PhD students; turned into successful drugs; run through to the stage 3 trial stage and then, once all the development costs are done and dusted, acquired for a discount price of the predicted future revenue stream So tell me, where are all the drugs being developed by america? I would say the rest of the world is more than pulling it's weight. In fact, given rough population parity between the European first world and the United states, it could in fact be argued that the United states is not pulling it's weight. I await your reasoned response

hrktb 11y ago

> You are paying for the cost of researching it and testing it, as well as a thousand other drugs that didn't make it to market. Trying to think of other straightforward instances where a tremendous cost is spent on researching and testing, and directly affect human well being. One example would be meat farming. As far as I know raising pigs or chicken evolved a lot in our lifetimes, extensive research was done on how to produce mor meat, there's oversight by a public agency and it is consumed by human so there is a decent amount of safety check and oversight. Yet meat is cheap. The more research that went into it, the cheaper it got. Provided meat as a product is more stable and less dangerous than drugs, I still think that it doesn't explain why meat would become cheaper while drug price should stay high and pharmatical firms should have extra protection to keep their prices high. We're not paying for research, we're paying for monopolies.

indians_pro 11y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/3ynwk2/factory_farming_a_modern_day_holocaust/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/3ynwk2/factory_... i recommend u go through this with an open mind and no bias on the source. the research might not be on what u think it is.
- hrktb 11y ago
  Thanks for the link. I am mostly aware of how bad farming is in regards of how animals are treated or what effect it can have on the surrounding environment. My entry to this rabbit hole was the huge pig shit lakes near some of the most industrialized pig farms. From there there is no illusion that most research would go into more 'humane' treatments, but at the same time there is a strong enough incentive to have balanced medication to keep the animals alive while leaving as few substances in the meat as possible. I'm not sure that research is moral or goes in the right direction, but I just suppose there is a decent amount of it given the scale of the market.
replicatorblog 11y ago
It's a matter of scale. Tyson and Cargil don't spend several billions of dollars to develop a new cut of bacon, essentially one SKU at the supermarket. However, Pfizer and Sanofi will spend billions to create one new drug. Also, drugs do get super cheap once the patents expire. In fact, there are massive companies that do nothing but wait for patents to expire so they can make generics—take a look at Teva and Perrigo if you're curious about the model.

mc32 11y ago

This is somewhat similar to developing new semiconductor processes or CPU architectures. It costs a ton in R&D but once taped out, the individual cost is relatively small. However, as in semis, the developer manufacturer will also look at what the market will bear. And things are complicated in pharma by copy-cats and gov'ts who understandably look the other way when a manufacturer undercuts the original manufacturer/license holder... So they, the orig drugmakers, kind of make up this shortfall in economies where the market will bear higher prices, so, in essence, developed countries subsidize the pharma costs of developing economies. And perhaps that's not so bad, given the comparative resources.