[ale] Incompetent corporate web sites (was: Ubuntu Linux ROCKS!)

[Thompson Freeman]

On 10/23/2009 11:11:22 AM, Greg Freemyer wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 10:46 AM,  <mmillard1 at comcast.net>
> wrote:
> > $ appauls me to the core that pills that save peoples
> lives cost 25¢ in
> > Mexico and hundreds here because pharmacists can charge
> hundreds of dollars
> > here. If the government wanted to do something to help
> us Cap Pharmacy
> > prices at 1000% markup. I don't like the idea of
> Health.care and life in
> > general being a profit margin but it is and always has
> been.
> 
> I don't claim to know the details, but the issue is:
> 
> $1B to create / test / get approved a new drug.
> 
> $0.05 to manufacture a pill.
> 
> You sell a few million pills in the first world and a few
> million in
> the third world.
> 
> How do you recover the $1B.
> 
> Current solution is you get 1st world healthcare to cover
> R&D and
> charge just a little over the marginal production cost to
> the third
> world.
> 
> So you can be appalled, but effectively it is the 1st
> world
> distributing healthcare aid to the 3rd world.  That does
> not appall me
> at all.
> 
> Now if your real issue is that they recover $1.5B for
> every $1B they
> spend, then that is a different matter.  But I have no
> idea what the
> ROI is for drug companies.  But, I don't think it is
> anywhere near
> 150%.  Yes, there are exceptions (like viagra) where the
> drug company
> makes billions off of a single successful drug, but that
> is the rare
> exception.

I'm not sure, but I think that the exception is more of the  
rule in big pharma these days. It isn't like they will turn  
down a salable drug, but what they _really_ want is another  
Viaga. And that is what they pursue in their research  
projects.