4 ms·

This is flawed thinking. But it's very popular flawed thinking, so you're certainly not alone. :) If marketing has a return on investment (and it does) then m

This is flawed thinking. But it's very popular flawed thinking, so you're certainly not alone. :) If marketing has a return on investment (and it does) then marketing spend also increases money available for R&D. Marketing and R&D are not pieces of a fixed pie. Marketing spend grows the entire pie and provides additional dollars for the company to spend on R&D.

mywittyname 8y ago
It does provide a perverse incentive to research drugs with high market potential over those with live saving potential.
- refurb 8y ago
  Of course it does. But until you can find trees that grow money, you need to invest in R&D that pays for itself.
hwillis 8y ago
> Marketing and R&D are not pieces of a fixed pie. Marketing spend grows the entire pie and provides additional dollars for the company to spend on R&D. You're talking like marketing extracts money from the ground as if it's a raw resource. If 10x as much is spent on marketing as RD then the money spent on pharmaceuticals is <10% going to RD. That's not good for the consumer. It would be good if marketing was regulated and that pharmaceuticals were forced to compete by spending money on RD and making better drugs.
- nostromo 8y ago
  It doesn't matter how much gets spent on marketing in relative terms. If it were 99% of the budget, but R&D was larger in absolute dollars, then that'd be a net positive. Marketing increases revenue. A portion of revenue goes to R&D. Ergo, more marketing means more revenue available for R&D.
cwkoss 8y ago
There is no moral way for a pharma company to increase demand for its product.
- nostromo 8y ago
  That's silly. If I have a cure for X. And if you have X but don't know about my cure -- perhaps you don't even know a cure is possible -- it's a net good for me to tell you about my cure for X. And how do I tell you if there are millions of yous I'm trying to reach? Via marketing.
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    That's an even sillier steel-man. Consumers are not good at making informed pharmaceutical choices on their own, and the idea that magazine advertisements showing smiling old people does anything to inform them is laughable. Also, pharma doesn't market cures, they prefer to market long-term treatments that are recurring funding streams.

mywittyname 8y ago

It does provide a perverse incentive to research drugs with high market potential over those with live saving potential.

refurb 8y ago
Of course it does. But until you can find trees that grow money, you need to invest in R&D that pays for itself.

hwillis 8y ago

> Marketing and R&D are not pieces of a fixed pie. Marketing spend grows the entire pie and provides additional dollars for the company to spend on R&D. You're talking like marketing extracts money from the ground as if it's a raw resource. If 10x as much is spent on marketing as RD then the money spent on pharmaceuticals is <10% going to RD. That's not good for the consumer. It would be good if marketing was regulated and that pharmaceuticals were forced to compete by spending money on RD and making better drugs.

nostromo 8y ago
It doesn't matter how much gets spent on marketing in relative terms. If it were 99% of the budget, but R&D was larger in absolute dollars, then that'd be a net positive. Marketing increases revenue. A portion of revenue goes to R&D. Ergo, more marketing means more revenue available for R&D.

cwkoss 8y ago

There is no moral way for a pharma company to increase demand for its product.

nostromo 8y ago
That's silly. If I have a cure for X. And if you have X but don't know about my cure -- perhaps you don't even know a cure is possible -- it's a net good for me to tell you about my cure for X. And how do I tell you if there are millions of yous I'm trying to reach? Via marketing.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  That's an even sillier steel-man. Consumers are not good at making informed pharmaceutical choices on their own, and the idea that magazine advertisements showing smiling old people does anything to inform them is laughable. Also, pharma doesn't market cures, they prefer to market long-term treatments that are recurring funding streams.