Comments on: Which Drugs Have The Biggest Pre-Tax Margins?

By: pdf

pdf — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:45:49 +0000

The retail clothing industry is a big one in the US, yet virtually all clothing is made outside the US, arguably in the 3rd world. Next time you buy a T-shirt with some dopey logo or image on it, remember that it costs some company a buck to make and ship over here, while you pay $20 or more. Profit margin? Try 19 fold or 1900 percent. No R&D costs, no FDA regulation and it does not extend your life.

By: online pharmacy

online pharmacy — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:16:38 +0000

I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it keep the good work

By: ppw

ppw — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:46:56 +0000

Joan, Do you have your money in a bank and/or do you own a home? Last I noticed…they were pretty darn corrupt industries, so corrupt they helped mastermind much of the fraud and deceit that has helped bring our entire nation down (of course, GOV’T gave them a heaping helpful spoonful of medicine) pun intended.

By: John

John — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:37:11 +0000

Joan, if you think pharma companies are “obscenely profitable”, I can only assume that you have most of your savings invested in pharmaceutical stocks.

Personally, I ditched all my pharma holdings after enduring 10 years of consistently declining share prices and losing almost half my investment.

By: marflow

marflow — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:43:50 +0000

In terms of research cost, including failures(!), balance sheets tell that the percentage of $$ used fro R%D roughly is half of the cost of marketing & sales. Costs of goods are very little indeed and margins high. Pharma still is one of the richest industries on earth.

By: bt

bt — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:47:28 +0000

I will argue on the life expectancy being significantly increased over the past twenty years. The life expectancy and quality of life measurements for the United States vs. other countries puts the US at a dismal #23. We spend 3x in healthcare what the #1 country spends. So, there is certainly room for improvement.
I am a clinician that happens to have spent my professional career in the pharmaceutical industry. I know plenty of terrific, honorable, and most importantly, patient-centric folks that make their living in the industry as well. Unfortunately, those folks are not RUNNING these companies. And therein, lies the problem. That, combined with our unique need in the USA to report quarterly earnings, regardless of the industry, is what is driving tactics and budgets toward short-term performance and not investing in strategies that will ensure long term sustainability and benefits to the patients. Some industries (e.g. retail) can be held to quarterly earnings -but very few industries with the lengthy development cycles that pharma has can without robbing Peter to pay Paul in the downturn cycles.

By: livin longer with meds

livin longer with meds — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:53:25 +0000

Joan and all the other narrow minded individuals must realize that without profits, there would be no incentive for pharma to develop (and yes pay for R&D) for new meds. Look at the US Govt National Institutes of Health. What have they developed? Look at canada. No drug development there.

It is unfortunate but a fact, the US consumer funds drug development for the rest of the world.

The average 65+ patient in america is on 5 to 8 oral medications. The average life expentancy has dramatically increased in the last 20 years. Pharma brings new and more advanced medicines to the market. Anyone else see the correlation here?

By: Christopher

Christopher — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:38:29 +0000

Joan clearly isn’t thrilled with what ‘pharma’ does and is or why ‘it’ does it. Fair enough but isn’t it a little too easy and unfair to paint hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of employees around the world with the general ignoble, cynical attitudes described here? I am not an apologist (I did work in the industry once) nor am I naive, but I do find these sweeping statements unhelpful if not insulting.

If one were to categorize an ethnic group, or nationality, with the same indiscriminate zeal, and label that group as (fill in here) it would be widely seen as offensive by some if not most in that category, and properly so.

Generalising about ‘pharma’ doesn’t help. Of course there are frauds, crooks, parasites just as there are in other industries. What seems illogical is to hold ‘pharma’ to higher standards, expect different business ethics, and characterise all its employees as tainted just because its output is health-related.

Ths happens to be aimed at Joan, but my frustration rests in the pervasive attitude that ‘pharma’ is bad. It’s not so, and the people who work in it deserve a better review.

By: Joan

Joan — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:35:04 +0000

Dear TB - I’m having trouble stifling my derisive laugh.
“…all in the noble pursuit of trying to improve patient lives…” Wow. You certainly are naive. There is nothing noble about what pharma does. What pharma does is done purely in pursuit of $$$. There may be some bench scientists who work for pharma who have been conned into thinking that what they do is done in an effort to improve patient lives, but let’s get real here and not kid ourselves. The pharmaceutical industry is not a noble business. If the pharmaceutical industry were noble, it would aggressively pursue treatments for rare/orphan diseases. It would spend time on treatments for diseases, rather than on so-called lifestyle drugs. It would come up with new discoveries, rather than focusing on new iterations of the same old same old just to get a new patent on the same drug. It would market pure enantiomer drugs right from the start in order to reduce side effects, rather than waiting until the patent on the racemic drug is about to expire in a profiteering maneuver. It would never have broadly bought-off doctors with speaking arrangements, vacations, etc., in order to influence their prescribing in often inappropriate ways. There is nothing noble about pharma. It is not here for us. It is here for Wall Street. I don’t want Prozac in my cereal, but if pharma could fix things so that cereal could be “enriched” with its drugs, it most certainly would jump at the opportunity to do so. Let’s not kid ourselves about the motivations of the people running and otherwise selling for pharma.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:21:56 +0000

For those of us less versed in economics, I do think some clarity on the terminology would be nice.
Cancer drugs are hard to develop because there are so many different kinds of cancer and so many things that can go awry late in development, but I have a hard time with these profits if true.
I work in pharma and have often been a critic. But I do think this industry is unfairly singled out. Thanks Jay Purcell for pointing out the profits on other popular, non-essential products that we HAVE to have. What about Starbucks? What about Tylenol (how long has it been on the market)? What about diapers and baby formula? For-profit companies do have a responsibility to share holders, and a lot of people being critical have also made a lot of money off of pharma companies over the past several decades.