I suspect the previous poster is referring to data like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-pharmaceutical-companies-are-spending-f

I suspect the previous poster is referring to data like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-pharmaceutical-companies-are-spending-far-more-on-marketing-than-research/?utm_term=.17bb532a646a https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-p... ...which shows that big pharma generally (Roche excepted) spends more on marketing than R&D. Of course, it's not actually half of all spend, as suggested, as this ignores other operating costs. For example, to take Roche in 2017, sales and royalties brought in ~55.5m CHF. On the flip side, 14.4m CHF was spent on 'cost of sales' (= production costs, overheads, royalties, etc.), 9.5m CHF was spent on 'marketing and distribution', 10.3m CHF was spent on R&D, and 2.5m CHF on 'general and administration'. So in the best case from the WP, R&D > Marketing & distribution, but R&D spend was roughly 28% of total spend. https://www.roche.com/dam/jcr:b70415c0-954f-4a2a-a0e2-47f94bd280e0/en/fb17e.pdf#page=2 https://www.roche.com/dam/jcr:b70415c0-954f-4a2a-a0e2-47f94b...