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Coincidentally, I just posted a huge rant against, "It's just marketing" in another thread, but I'll respond to this much less rantier. Big pharma uses patents
by endersshadow 15y ago
Coincidentally, I just posted a huge rant against, "It's just marketing" in another thread, but I'll respond to this much less rantier.
Big pharma uses patents to protect their monopoly on a drug for seven(?) years after its introduced. Once that window is up, generics come in and take a huge chunk of sales. Pharma uses marketing and advertising to push their new drugs to try to sell as many during the patent window as they possibly can, when they have a large markup on it.
- epistasis 15y agoThese days big pharma has outsourced all their early stage development to startups, purchasing compounds in the late stages through acquisition. They do pay for research, but it's not going to look that way on their balance sheet. Their primary function, as you say, is shifting far towards the marketing end.
- abecedarius 15y agoI think you mean 17?