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Repost: Where this cash is going~

Posted by Andy123 on July 31, 2001, at 23:59:16

Of every seven dollar spent by U.S. pharmaceutical companies, only two dollars are spent on science research. Five of seven dollars goes to business, marketing, patent defense, liability control, dealing with regulators, lobby efforts, and stock dividends.

If you really want to get upset about this, then figure in the costs that you've already paid in federal taxes to support the fundamental research (at universities) that contributes to and directs the industry's research efforts.
None of this seems to ridiculous until you see the incomes of some of the non-science people compared to the science people. A while back here in Indianapolis, the CEO of Eli Lilly took home over 100 million dollars in one year (and then retired.) An average organic chemist [say with a 4 year BSinChem, a 4-5 year PhD and a 1-2 year postdoc] in the industry makes about 80k +/- 10k annually.

They have a great facade- they really want you to think that they are doing absolute rocket science. I don't want to directly quote the website of one of these companies but to parapharase: "our medicinal chemists conceptually design molecules using knowledge of organic chemistry, computational chemistry, and physiology." This is so far from the truth as to be completely ridiculous. All of these companies use a method of "playing the craps" where they test the stockpiles of proprietary compounds for some activity that the medical literature suggests would be helpful. Then they test the active compounds for toxicity. They certainly by no means are designing compounds with foresight from computational chemistry [a subset of physical chemistry.] Very rarely do they first postulate on the mechanics of a physiological problem and then come up with a synthetic target. When they do this, its only in the context of what might the effects be of changing a functional group on a compound known to have some efficacy. Often its done after the experimentation, and is not part of a strategy. Modeling physiological processes with ab-initio approaches [or even simplified molecular mechanics (MMC)] isn't a even a remote possibility right now.

So the long and the short of it is this - they are over-representing their accomplishments and capacities to an absurd degree. Their business guys promote this to legitimize their excessive prices and profits.

P.S.
Sorry Sal for stealing your thread :)
> >Remeron (mirtazapine)- U.S. $350.94 for 180 of the 15 mg; $81.99 (retail) for 30 of the 45 mg
> >
> > Prozac (fluoxetine) - $327.27 for 400 of the 10 mg
> >
> > Effexor (venlafaxine) - $230.59 for 100 of the 150 mg;
> > $128.09 for 100 of the 75 mg
> >
> > Generic Trazodone - $31.69 (retail) for 34 of the 150 mg
> >
> > Neurontin (gabapentin) - $286.39 for 200 of the 400 mg
> >
> > Zyprexa (olanzapine) - $1,178.93 for 150 of the 10 mg


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poster:Andy123 thread:8498
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010731/msgs/8498.html