7 votes

The debate over America’s drug-pricing system is built on myths

2 comments

  1. JohnLeFou
    Link
    I accidentally lost a long post so I’ll summarize my thoughts. Drug makers in the referred article on marketing vs R&D makes a poor case. Even if companies spend more on R&D the fact that...

    I accidentally lost a long post so I’ll summarize my thoughts.

    Drug makers in the referred article on marketing vs R&D makes a poor case. Even if companies spend more on R&D the fact that marketing is still close in budget means we should probably ban direct to consumer advertising like other countries. The fact that most already ban it means most of those $ are being spent in the US

    2 votes
  2. skybrian
    (edited )
    Link
    From the article: [...]

    From the article:

    What results is a feedback loop. Not only are most drugs developed by industry, but more and more of the economic and scientific risk is taken by small companies that want a big return. And important areas like antibiotics research, with fewer drugs and fewer price increases, get left behind.

    This is an extraordinarily inefficient way to fund anything, but it creates incredible treatments. Investors don’t back an idea unless it is possible it will yield a tenfold or hundredfold return. We’ll probably get blood tests for cancer, new gene therapies, and many more cancer drugs out of this system, but we can assume they won’t be cheap.

    [...]

    Current revenue isn’t a funding stream. It’s a lottery ticket that encourages gamblers to ante up.

    1 vote