17 ms·

Phamaceuticals wouldn't collapse; half of their current expenditures go into advertising, half into research. But that only accounts for half of the actual res

Phamaceuticals wouldn't collapse; half of their current expenditures go into advertising, half into research. But that only accounts for half of the actual research costs: the rest mainly comes from the NSF. We could just have the NSF give them a 100% handout and cover all the research.

marcus 19y ago
Get your stats right, do your research before you comment. Pharmaceutical research in the US 2005 34.8B USD federal funds 41M USD. Thats less than 0.12%. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf07335/ http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf07335/
- scw 19y ago
  The NSF isn't the primary fund granting organization for medical research, the NIH is -- with a funding level (28.7B) that eclipses the NSF (5.9B). In 2003, NIH is estimated to have funded 28% of the overall medical investigation costs: http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/tb/1767 http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/... Pharmaceutical research in all likelyhood includes the cost of bringing drugs to market, currently around $800M per drug. Because of this high barrier, much of the Pharma energy goes into 'me too' drugs of a higher risk/reward ratio, again inflating the true spending on new research: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/what-dont-we-know-about-the-pharmaceutical-industry-a-freakonomics-quorum/ http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/what-dont-w...
  - marcus 19y ago
    Yes the NIH is a major source of funding for pharma, although not as big as you think, medical investigation includes a lot that is not pharmaceutical research The me-too phenomena is a problem but only because of two factors, pressure by pharma reps and the fact that the US is the only country I ever heard of that allows advertising of non over-the-counter meds.
yummyfajitas 19y ago
"Advertising" includes training doctors, not just "ask your doctor about erectinol" commercials. Hiring doctors to travel the country, give lectures explaining how it works, renting conference centers, providing lunch, etc adds up. Learning how to use a new drug is not easy like learning software; trial and error doesn't work. A drug is worthless if your doctor doesn't know what it does.
- wallflower 19y ago
  I know some pharmaceutical reps - they say without irony - that they push (in the drug dealer sense) whatever drug their company wants them to. America is the one of the only countries that allows pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers. http://tinyurl.com/27y5df http://tinyurl.com/27y5df
  - davidw 19y ago
    So in other countries, they simply spend the same money trying to bribe doctors instead of consumers.
  - byrneseyeview 19y ago
    Considering how arrogant doctors are, and how powerful the placebo effect is, it might make us healthier if we had more advertising directly to consumers and less to doctors.

marcus 19y ago

Get your stats right, do your research before you comment. Pharmaceutical research in the US 2005 34.8B USD federal funds 41M USD. Thats less than 0.12%. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf07335/ http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf07335/

scw 19y ago
The NSF isn't the primary fund granting organization for medical research, the NIH is -- with a funding level (28.7B) that eclipses the NSF (5.9B). In 2003, NIH is estimated to have funded 28% of the overall medical investigation costs: http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/tb/1767 http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/... Pharmaceutical research in all likelyhood includes the cost of bringing drugs to market, currently around $800M per drug. Because of this high barrier, much of the Pharma energy goes into 'me too' drugs of a higher risk/reward ratio, again inflating the true spending on new research: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/what-dont-we-know-about-the-pharmaceutical-industry-a-freakonomics-quorum/ http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/what-dont-w...
- marcus 19y ago
  Yes the NIH is a major source of funding for pharma, although not as big as you think, medical investigation includes a lot that is not pharmaceutical research The me-too phenomena is a problem but only because of two factors, pressure by pharma reps and the fact that the US is the only country I ever heard of that allows advertising of non over-the-counter meds.

yummyfajitas 19y ago

"Advertising" includes training doctors, not just "ask your doctor about erectinol" commercials. Hiring doctors to travel the country, give lectures explaining how it works, renting conference centers, providing lunch, etc adds up. Learning how to use a new drug is not easy like learning software; trial and error doesn't work. A drug is worthless if your doctor doesn't know what it does.

wallflower 19y ago
I know some pharmaceutical reps - they say without irony - that they push (in the drug dealer sense) whatever drug their company wants them to. America is the one of the only countries that allows pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers. http://tinyurl.com/27y5df http://tinyurl.com/27y5df
- davidw 19y ago
  So in other countries, they simply spend the same money trying to bribe doctors instead of consumers.
- byrneseyeview 19y ago
  Considering how arrogant doctors are, and how powerful the placebo effect is, it might make us healthier if we had more advertising directly to consumers and less to doctors.