90% Of Big Pharma Spent More On Marketing Than Research In 2013 Alone

Oftentimes more than double the 

 Pharma corporations are spending their cash on research ‘for the cure’ and finding ways to implement life-saving ingredients into their next formula, right? As it turns out, 9 out of 10 Big Pharma companies actually spent more on their sales and marketing than their research and development.

In the infographic below, checkout the 2013 spending habits of the top 10 Big Pharma corporations:

.

More here: http://naturalsociety.com/90-big-pharma-spent-marketing-research-20...

The Truth About the Drug Companies

By Marcia Angell, M.D. 

For a two-page summary of the health cover-up, click here


Paying for prescription drugs is no longer a problem just for poor people. As the economy continues to struggle ... employers are requiring workers to pay more of the costs themselves. Since prescription drug costs are rising so fast, payers are particularly eager to get out from under them by shifting costs to individuals. The result is that more people have to pay a greater fraction of their drug bills out of pocket. And that packs a wallop.

Many of them simply can't do it. They trade off drugs against home heating or food. Some people try to string out their drugs by taking them less often than prescribed, or sharing them with a spouse. Others, too embarrassed to admit that they can't afford to pay for drugs, leave their doctors' offices with prescriptions in hand but don't have them filled. Not only do these patients go without needed treatment but their doctors sometimes wrongly conclude that the drugs they prescribed haven't worked and prescribe yet others—thus compounding the problem.

 When Medicare was enacted in 1965, people took far fewer prescription drugs and they were cheap. For that reason, no one thought it necessary to include an outpatient prescription drug benefit in the program. In those days, senior citizens could generally afford to buy whatever drugs they needed out of pocket. Approximately half to two thirds of the elderly have supplementary insurance that partly covers prescription drugs, but that percentage is dropping as employers and insurers decide it is a losing proposition for them.

For obvious reasons, the elderly tend to need more prescription drugs than younger people—mainly for chronic conditions like arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol. In 2001, nearly one in four seniors reported that they skipped doses or did not fill prescriptions because of the cost. (That fraction is almost certainly higher now.) Sadly, the frailest are the least likely to have supplementary insurance.

Furthermore, in one of the more perverse of the pharmaceutical industry's practices, prices are much higher for precisely the people who most need the drugs and can least afford them. The industry charges Medicare recipients without supplementary insurance much more than it does favored customers, such as large HMOs or the Veterans Affairs (VA) system. Because the latter buy in bulk, they can bargain for steep discounts or rebates. People without insurance have no bargaining power; and so they pay the highest prices.

In the past two years, we have started to see, for the first time, the beginnings of public resistance to rapacious pricing and other dubious practices of the pharmaceutical industry. It is mainly because of this resistance that drug companies are now blanketing us with public relations messages. And the magic words, repeated over and over like an incantation, are research, innovation, and American. Research. Innovation. American. It makes a great story.

But while the rhetoric is stirring, it has very little to do with reality. First, . In fact, year after year, for over two decades, this industry has been far and away the most profitable in the United States. (In 2003, for the first time, the industry lost its first-place position, coming in third, behind "mining, crude oil production," and "commercial banks.") The prices drug companies charge have little relationship to the costs of making the drugs and could be cut dramatically without coming anywhere close to threatening R&D.

Second, the pharmaceutical industry is not especially innovative. As hard as it is to believe, only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

 The idea is to grab a share of an established, lucrative market by producing something very similar to a top-selling drug. For instance, we now have six statins (Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, and the newest, Crestor) on the market to lower cholesterol, all variants of the first. As Dr. Sharon Levine, associate executive director of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, put it:

 [4]

Third, the industry is hardly a model of American free enterprise. To be sure, it is free to decide which drugs to develop (me-too drugs instead of innovative ones, for instance), and it is free to price them as high as the traffic will bear, but it is utterly dependent on government-granted monopolies—in the form of patents and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved exclusive marketing rights. If it is not particularly innovative in discovering new drugs, it is highly innovative—and aggressive—in dreaming up ways to extend its monopoly rights.

And there is nothing peculiarly American about this industry. It is the very essence of a global enterprise.  (The exact count shifts because of mergers.) In 2002, the top ten were the American companies Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Wyeth (formerly American Home Products); the British companies GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca; the Swiss companies Novartis and Roche; and the French company Aventis (which in 2004 merged with another French company, Sanafi Synthelabo, putting it in third place). [5] All are much alike in their operations. All price their drugs much higher here than in other markets.


More here: http://www.wanttoknow.info/truthaboutdrugcompanies


TO OVERHAUL THE CORPORATE TAX CODE START WITH DRUG COMPANIES:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/01/the-trouble-with-co...


Dollars for Doctors

.

Dollars for Docs: How Industry Dollars Reach Your Doctors

by Eric Sagara, Charles Ornstein, Tracy Weber, Ryann Grochowski Jones and Jeremy B. Merrill, ProPublica, Updated Sept. 29, 2014

In recent years, drug companies have started releasing details of the payments they make to doctors and other health professionals for promotional talks, research and consulting. As of 2014, 17 companies published the information, most because of legal settlements. Use this tool to search for payments.

Search our database »

Read more about the data »

http://www.propublica.org/series/dollars-for-docs

Views: 115

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

Comment by Sweettina2 on February 18, 2015 at 6:44pm

Exactly,  I agree!

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

Less Prone replied to Burbia's discussion Trump Receives Marching Orders
"Bullets can be effective in reinforcing ownership."
18 minutes ago
Burbia posted a discussion

Trump Receives Marching Orders

Netanyahu has made 3 visits to the White house since Trump's second term as President of the United…See More
6 hours ago
Burbia commented on Burbia's video
Thumbnail

Ben Shapiro Just LOST HIS MIND — There's No Coming Back From This

"Omg. The Ben Shapiro voice that Luke is imitating here couldn't be any more comedic to…"
14 hours ago
Burbia posted a video

Ben Shapiro Just LOST HIS MIND — There's No Coming Back From This

Get the magnesium your body needs - https://wearechange.shop/product/magnesium-glycinate/Ben Shapiro Just LOST HIS MIND — There's No Coming Back From ThisHig...
15 hours ago
cheeki kea posted photos
23 hours ago
Doc Vega posted blog posts
yesterday
Burbia posted a video

A few reasons I don’t like jews. It’s not complicated.

These are the reasons I became antisemitic. It’s not complicated. Sure, I could go on for days, weeks, months outlining everything, but I don’t need to. This...
Monday
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Unusual Discoveries and Headlines
"Less Prone, Thanks Buddy! I'd like to volunteer as a historical reconstructionist! "
Sunday
Less Prone left a comment for t.me/TheIntelligenceLibrary
"Welcome to a revolutionary concept in public communication, the truth."
Sunday
pohonemas33 team is now a member of 12160 Social Network
Sunday
Less Prone favorited cheeki kea's discussion Tartaria
Sunday
tjdavis's 2 blog posts were featured
Sunday
Doc Vega's 7 blog posts were featured
Sunday
Less Prone commented on Doc Vega's blog post Unusual Discoveries and Headlines
"Some incredible pieces of history!"
Sunday
Less Prone favorited Doc Vega's blog post Unusual Discoveries and Headlines
Sunday
tjdavis posted a blog post
Sunday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

First Week of July 1947 an Inflexion Point for Humanity!

The year is 1947 and sometime around July 4th the anniversary of the birth our nation, when a…See More
Saturday
Doc Vega commented on Doc Vega's blog post Government Issued Wearables? What’s Wrong With this Picture?
"cheeki kea Ha! Good one!"
Friday
tjdavis posted a video

This is Paris Now… You Won’t See This in the Tourist Brochures

In this video, I take you through Marché Barbès and its surrounding neighbourhoods — an area that reflects the modern, complex face of Paris most tourists ne...
Friday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

Trump's Big Beautiful Bill Passes Amidst Democrat Lies About a Tax cut for the Rich Being Averted

AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.It’s over, folks. President Trump and congressional Republicans aimed to…See More
Thursday

© 2025   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted