Maybe you could just make it illegal to advertise drugs. Drug companies are already wildly profitable, and their number 1 expense is advertising. Most research and developement costs are goverment funded anyway. I think the ethicallity (is that a word?) of creating a demand for a prescription drug through advertising is very borderline.

 
Solutions: Extend the patent laws requiring companies to lower prices but giving them longer to recoup costs. Bush wants to bring generics to the market faster, if that happens your going to pay more for your drugs since the ability to recoup costs would be shorter. Decrease certain FDA requirements for drug manufactors. Healthcare is the most heavily regulated industry in the US, more regulations than oil, explosives, selling automatic weapons.[/reply]


You've hit the nail right on the head-I couldn't agree more-- R&D is very expensive, and the companies need more time to recoup costs.

Patent law and tort reform would make a significant difference.

DD,

The belief that most R&D is government funded is false. The gov does provide some funding but it pales in comparison to the amount of money that Drug companies pour into R&D. For instance Pfizer spent $7.1 (17% of revenue)billion and much smaller Amgen spent $1.7 billion (21% of revenue). I agree that the drug companies are very profitable but that is their incentive to take risks and pour money into unknown compounds, most of which will never make it to the market.

I will also argee that some of the advertising is borderline. However, an ad may help a person get a life saving/changing drug from their physcian. I think it would be very difficult for a doctor to know about EVERY drug out there at this point in time as there are so many and they have gotten very specific.

Another reason health care has risen so much is that there are more advances. More tests to find illness, more proceedures to treat people, more devices to implant, more drugs to treat very specific things.

Side note-One of the best/worst examples is Genzyme's Cerazyme which sold $739 million to aboout 4000 patients. You do the math. It treates a previously untreated disease and is expensive to manufacture. How expensive I do not know. This is the most expensive treatment I can think of off the top of my head.



JW

---

JW (on the comback trail)

Actually complying with gov't regulations cost more than the advertising. DTC advertising is not the biggest expense a pharma company has. Some research, as NYCTri stated, is funded by the gov't, but again the pharma company will shoulder most if not all of the R&D costs. The days of findng a polio vaccine are over there is not much if any incentive for the gov't to fund research for say toenail fungus or erectile dsyfunction. Patients are also not as willing to take care of themselves. It is much easier to take a pill for diabetes than make the lifestyle changes that could ultimately allow them to stop the meds. Apathy is an American value these days.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I was paraphrasing a statement I heard on the radio, probably NPR (I'm ashamed to admit). The speaker was adamant that R&D funds are not a particularly high percentage of the cost of medications. In fact, if I can recall correctly, much of the R&D that goes into a new medication is not done by the company that ultimately markets it anyway. The discussion also went into how the drug companies have not invested in R&D heavily, and have been trying to get by on their old patents, many of which are due to expire for the most profitable drugs. Rather than creating new drugs that provide health benefits, they have focussed on "me too" drugs to treat erectile disfunction, hair loss, etc, which are more profitable. I'm not in the industry so I'm just replaying what I can recall. One thing that is very clear is that drug companies have been extemely profitable lately.