Where are you getting 10X? If I look at, say, Merck, their "sales, general, and administrative expenses" [1] trends at even or slightly higher than their R&D ex

Where are you getting 10X? If I look at, say, Merck, their "sales, general, and administrative expenses" [1] trends at even or slightly higher than their R&D expenses [2]. Abbvie's ratio is around 2x [3, 4]. AFAIK, SG&A is the number that groups criticizing pharmaceutical companies look at, even though it includes a lot of money spent on things like paying lawyers, which any pharmaceutical company that actually wants to make back the billions spent on developing drugs will have to do. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/269499/merck-and-co-sganda-expenses/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/269499/merck-and-co-sgan... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/282738/expenditure-on-research-and-development-by-merck-and-co/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/282738/expenditure-on-re... [3] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ABBV/abbvie/selling-general-administrative-expenses https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ABBV/abbvie/sellin... [4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/417068/r-and-d-expenditure-of-abbvie/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/417068/r-and-d-expenditu...