Um, a lot of the Big Pharma companies are in fact foreign companies.
Which still nevertheless use NIH-funded research for a lot of their products.
Didn't someone cite earlier in this thread that they only spend 12% of their revenues on R&D?
They spend more on marketing and advertising, like all the Cialis and Viagra commercials running on TV. Or as noted in another thread, hiring former beauty pageant contestants to call on doctors to prescribe their drugs.
There's more credit being given for "innovation" in the pharmaceuticals industry than there actually is.
Regarding OUS Big Pharma companies: True, there are still some Big Pharma companies OUS. But many of them have merged with US Pharma corps. Much of the innovation which accrues to the "foreign" companies is actually done in the US.
The 12% figure that gets bounced around about Big Pharma is in the eye of the beholder. Depends on who is calculating it (and what they use the value for - could even be for political reasons). I'm not an expert on this subject, but I would be very cautious about basing major "political" decisions on that 12% figure. True enough, Big Pharma has it's stake in you believing the number is higher than 12%. So, again, I'm just suggesting we don't buy one number as if it's gospel. I don't have a better number so I'll say no more about the 12%.
It's true that NIH and (so called) tax supported universities do a lot of research for pharma companies. Much of that gets paid for by pharma and there are grants made for specific projects from pharma. So while pharma DOES build on other's research, it's not ALL or even mostly done outside. The BIGGGGGG thing that costs pharma a ton of money is so-called "DEVELOPMENT". It can easily cost $1 Billion dollars to get a drug to market, counting the initial research (in-house or purchased). The biggest costs are to "please" the FDA with ever more studies. It used to be that pharma could use several hundred patients to research safety and efficacy. Now, it typically exceeds 10,000. Protocols for which the gummint and pharma have agreed for the testing can be changed at the (literally) whim of the gummint. Pharma can't have approval without the FDA, so FDA sets the rules (as it goes). Now, please don't misunderstand. We ALL want safe and effective drugs. I personally do not "trust" Big Pharma to be altruistic and produce such drugs without "guidance" (and a big ugly stick). Having said that, having an FDA which is more political than scientific costs US more money when it comes time to purchasing our drugs. The Pharma Companies won't eat those costs. They'll charge us one way or the other. Like I say, they aren't in it to "help" people, they are in it to make money. (I'd like to think most of the PEOPLE in these companies are just like you and I. THEY do indeed do it to help people - as well as to earn a pay check.)
Regarding marketing - I agree that there is way too much of that. Still, I pointed out drug marketing led to a very swift switch from ulcer surgery to ulcer prevention. (I just happen to know about this particular issue). Most other drugs are "over marketed" - but realistically, selling these drugs makes it possible to make new ones. I'd personally rather see some better way of funding such things, but the profit motive has ALWAYS been more successful in bringing new (and usually) better drugs to market than the gummint. Putting the gummint in charge of whether you get a cure for (insert disease here) would seem just about like putting the USPS up against UPS or FEDX. Yes, USPS does deliver the mail, but...
I don't know how to split out the "credit" for who does the innovation. Big as Big Pharma is, they DO DEPEND to some extent upon start-up companies, universities, independent labs, gummint labs, NIH, etc. etc. to get started on a promising compound. It's the Big Pharma that USUALLY sees the potential in what is often BEGUN at these other places. It's also Big Pharma which learns how to make these compounds in sufficient quantity and at low enough price to be viable. So, I'll not argue the point, but say the answer isn't as clear as your statement. For instance, I simply suggest that Big Pharma does indeed do a lot of R&D. Don't think I ever suggested they did it all nor more than anyone else, etc. We NEED all of the various researchers to look for ever more difficult to find drugs to treat ever more difficult to cure illnesses. Big Pharma will gladly take more than their share of the credit, but I didn't give it to them. Still, without Big Pharma, we won't be getting affordable (a relative term) cures/treatments for all kinds of diseases - again, unless you want to turn it over to the folks who brought you the post office and (fill in the blank). I'm not a cheerleader for Big Pharma. I just think they tend to get a bad rap - like BIG (FILL IN THE BLANK). They make a ton of money and a lot of people resent that. I say, if you think Big Pharma (or Big Oil, or Big Food, or Big Three, or Big Anything) seems to have a "lock" on something, you think they can "print" money, you think they have near monopoly, then don't complain about it. BUY THEIR BLOODY STOCK! If you don't then maybe you have doubts about your own view of their "power" and ability to manipulate markets, or take some sort of unfair advantage. If you think Big Pharma is a sure thing, you need to ask how many shares you own.
I've been vocal about this subject because I know at least a little bit about it from tangential involvement in the industry. BUT, if it sounds like I'm a cheerleader, it's the same way I feel about Big Oil finding a huge lake of oil under the Dakotas (or where ever). Yes, they'll make a ton of profit from it, but, in my life time, we are unlikely to run out of oil. I see that as a good thing. Let's not knock Big Pharma either. Both parents had alzheimers. I pray every day that Big Pharma will make an OBSCENE PROFIT from selling ME a drug that will prevent that disease. Of course (and as always) YMMV.
