[TheForge] New Pharmaceuticals (was: Doug Hendrickson)

[Bruce Freeman]

>>> williamsiron at comcast.net 9/29/2004 7:09:20 PM >>>
<snip>

>>>While ALS is a terminal illness, one should never give up hope for a
drug to slow it down or stop it.

I work in the pharmaceutical industry, so I may be biased a bit,
but...

I want to point out that some folks out (and I don't mean on this list)
there are either very confused or quite hypocritical when it comes to
drug prices.

If we want new drugs to reverse or prevent the scourges of mankind,
SOMEONE has to discover them, develop them, prove safety and efficacy,
do stability tests of the dosage forms, and bring them to market.  Drugs
can be ten years from discovery to availability.  I understand that only
one of ten or more drug candidates ever makes it to market.  That means
the some portion of the research must be done on the other nine or so
candidates, with no income resulting for the pharmaceutical company. 
This is a very high-risk business.  Accordingly, it attracts investors
ONLY by being a very high profit business.

The US pharmaceutical industry has been quite effective at bringing
new, effective drugs to market.  Do we want to change this record?  I
don't!

There's no question that pharmaceuticals are high profit.  Double digit
profit is expected.  There ARE some misconceptions about how drug
companies spend their incomes, however.  I've seen it asserted that more
is spent on sales than on research.  That's bullshit.  Almost EVERYTHING
a drug company does BESIDES manufacturing and sales IS research.  (Okay,
there's overhead like Personnel, Administratration, Purchasing, etc.,
which only SERVE research, and there are departments like "Regulatory"
which provide the documentation to get drugs approved by the FDA.  Those
aren't strictly research, but research WITHOUT those functions available
would be useless.  Which is one reason drug companies are BIG.)

As to the business of cheaper drugs from Canada.  That is a product of
socialist medicine in Canada.  The Canadian governments negotiates drug
prices, much as a large pharmacy chain might do.  Apparently, they
negotiate quite well, and get low prices.  (ANY seller must view an
order for a million widgets differently from an order for one widget,
and will adjust prices accordingly.)  

In the USA, much of what you spend on drugs is middleman profits. 
After all, you NEED someone to fill those prescriptions, to be open
24/7, etc.  (Some of those costs can be reduced by discount suppliers,
like ExpressScripts.com.)  So, when people go to Canada and bring back
drugs, they are bypassing the American distribution system.  They are
NOT particularly hurting the drug companies.  This is NOT an issue of
greedy drug companies.

In sum, if you want cheap drug prices, go ahead and put price
restrictions in place, or socialize US drug development.  If the
government is in charge of drug development, you'll have wonderful new
drugs available:
For headache:  aspirin
for menstrual cramps:  aspirin
for aches and pains:  aspirin
for fever: aspirin
to prevent heart disease:  aspirin
to prevent stroke:  aspirin

You get what you pay for.

Bruce
NJ