Countering arguments by pharmaceutical industry

[RedEarth]

As the old saying goes, a lie told often enough becomes the truth. In this case, that it cost $1 billion to develop new drugs (Letters, Jan. 7). Over the past 20 to 30 years, the pharmaceutical industry has averaged net profits three times that of other Fortune 500 companies. It spends more on marketing and lobbying than on research, often including marketing research in its calculations.

It develops far more me-too drugs than breakthrough drugs. The majority of breakthrough drugs and almost all the basic research are developed at government labs and/or universities funded by government grants.

The true cost of developing drugs is closer to $120 million to $140 million, about one-eighth of what the industry claims. There are a number of excellent books on this subject available at the San Diego Public Library, including John Abramson’s “Overdo$ed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine” (2004) and “The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs” (2004).

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/january/countering_arguments.php

[ColbertWatcher]

1. You know...

...regardless what it cost them to make a new drug...why can't they get it right?

So, they spend $5 trillion dollars to develop a pill that makes your hair grow back.

No where in that $5 trillion did anyone think to avoid repercussions or side effects?

You'd think the more they spend on a drug the it would be, but then again, I never really liked marketing.

[FormerDittoHead]

2. ...and many breakthrough drugs are usually the result of accidental discoveries...

But as you point out - NET profits. AFTER all R&D, AND marketing and salaries etc.

To hear their claims, you would think that they may go out of business if we were to mess with their business model...

[Warpy]

3. The good news is that a lot of the me too drugs were better

An example of this are the second generation ACE inhibitors, blood pressure control drugs. The breakthrough drug, captopril, required a relatively high dose and had a lot of side effects. The me too formulas could use lower doses and/or have far fewer side effects, ensuring patients would stay on them. Second generation patented antibiotics have also been superior than the original.

Sometimes a second generation drug is worse, and Vioxx would be a prime example, much more dangerous to the cardiovascular system than the original Celebrex was.

Much of the large scale testing is done by the pharmaceutical company that gets the NIH license on a breakthrough drug. That's where their cost comes in when it comes to getting that drug on the market. NIH does animal studies and limited studies on healthy human volunteers to assure safety. The drug companies do the double blind studies on sick people, the expensive studies.

However, before the inevitable "shill" flame comes in, we could cut the cost of new drugs in half if we ended the unethical practice of advertising to patients who are unqualified to diagnose themselves and prescribe patented prescription drugs. That's really what Big Pill is doing wrong and it should be stopped ASAP.