Drug Companies SUCKS

I've heard pharm companies take crap basically forever. While your position is totally understandable, I'm certain it's not as simple as "ripping people off because nobody can make them stop." For every drug they sell, they have dozens or hundreds of failed formulas, each of which cost them enormous sums in R&D, tweaking the mixtures and reactions to maximize intended effects and reduce side effects. Not only that, but they're already heavily regulated by the FDA, and in some cases, still have to pay millions in lawsuits if their pills cause horrible complications or patient deaths. Then the pill that did it is recalled, and the process starts all over.

I'm not saying Big Pharma is playing the victim, because obviously they're doing just fine. But they're certainly not the evil overlords people make them out to be because their medicines cost a king's ransom. High overhead is just the nature of the industry. I'm supposed to take a few things to treat psoriasis. One is a small bottle of oil that costs over $80. Not only are its effects negligible in the short term, but it's not even a cure, just temporary treatment. It makes me bitter too. >.<

 

There's a lot that goes into this argument. I take it you don't have insurance, right?

Frankly, a lot of pharmaceutical companies do help people and give assistance.

Where are you getting your meds? Those places have just as much of a right to jack the prices up!

 

This is the most common criticism of pharmaceutical companies. You're right, it doesn't cost them near that much to make mirapex. It's a very simple organic compound and the synthesis (this probably won't make sense for you, but I'm adding it for my convenience) doesn't take expensive reagents. The thing you have to remember is that pharmaceutical companies are just that - companies. Their sole goal is profit, but you're not going to have any luck by boycotting them. Many pharmaceutical companies heavily fund the FDA and the FDA needs money, hence why despite this issue being raised like hell nothing ever happens. It's a shame that you and other people have to put up with this, but there's not much that can be done. These companies have more power than you, a group of angry protesters, and your senators. Another reason you won't have any luck boycotting them is because so many people in the US depend on them. It's going to take a lot to convince people to stop taking the drugs that need just because they're being ripped off. I kind of admire it, because it's such an effective marketing ploy.

If you can't tell, I don't like pharmaceutical companies.

And you're right, illicit drugs are definitely cheaper. The trade however is that the pills pharmaceutical companies produce aren't just the chemicals in pure. They're formulated with various inactive ingredients to control how the active chemical released. You'll never find a illicit dealer (who isn't selling prefab pills) with drugs formulated for specific release patterns.

True. Inefficient (in terms of treatment) and sometimes addicting drugs (see amphetamines/methylphenidate derivatives for ADHD and reuptake inhibitors for depression)are prescribed so often because it's more efficient (in terms of profit) to string someone out on a drug that sort of treats an ailment then it is to actually look for a cure. If you find a cure, they don't need treatment. If a cure is never sought, you get returning customers. $Money!$

On a tangent, did you guys know that the most often prescribed prescription drug (reaching approximately 131 million prescriptions in 2011) in the US is Vicodin? A semisynthetic and addictive opioid?

 

Actually, they're really just evil overlords. Death by Prescription is a fantastic book about the Canadian pharmaceutical industry, which is very similar...I'm not sure what an American alternative would be.

 

Checking into that book, but until then, I find it really hard to believe that it's all a giant conspiracy to con/rob people rather than operating with ethical practices. Not that NONE of them would, as I imagine a lot do get drunk with power. But not all of them.

 

How else can pharmaceutical R&D be funded though? They've been finding fewer and fewer successful small molecule drugs in recent years whilst spending more looking for them and biological alternatives.

Now if national health services or allied research institutions did pharmaceutical research, pooling their international resources in R&D and keeping the patents themselves to share, perhaps we could have fairer access to medicines. This would presumably involve contracting the manufacturing of drugs to other companies. I can't imagine that working or being implemented across the world, though. Capitalism doesn't distribute drugs fairly, but can they really be developed any other way? Perhaps the Human Genome Project and space programmes could be used for comparison, but I don't know how closely.

 

It doesn't take that much to develop a new drug. There are methods of calculating specific molecular structures according to the response you want to elicit at a receptor site (read about quantitative structure activity relationships, if you're curious) but they involve hours, even months even longer of calculations to end up with a molecule with no definite guarantee at working. Pharmaceutical design typically involves synthesizing hundreds, even thousands, of related organic compounds and finding the results of each one. It's cheaper and more efficient to take thousands of drugs and find a handful (single digits) that work than it is to spend a ton of time calculating the structures of potential candidate drugs and then test them (usually to turn up empty). The only funding it really requires is money for tissue samples (if they're going in vitro), lab mice, and precursors/catalysts for organic synthesis. The glory days of pharmacology when scientists were constantly preocupied with isolating compounds from natural sources (plants, fungi, animals) already shown to work in traditional/folk medicine (like traditional Chinese medicinal herbs) and possibly modifying them to fit their needs are long since gone.

Don't confuse pharmaceutical research and development with biomedical research and development though. The latter is booming.

 

Untitled Document

here is an estimate.
mind you, because FDA regulates drug companies and well, drugs, think of it like an upside pyramid. you start off with a huge number of candidates that could be used for drugs, but as testing proceeds, the number goes down. and they have so many years to earn profit before generic drugs can start selling them cheaper

 

vlogbrothers like a boss (pair of bosses?).
The 1200% Increase in my Prescription Drug Costs - YouTube

 

I work in the pharmaceutical industry, for a small contract research organization.

I have worked in big pharma, and I can tell you that, without exception, the people I have encountered are ethical and well-intentioned. But what I found when I started working for a large pharmaceutical firm was tremendous waste and a baffling and inefficient use of their then considerable resources.

What I can say then is that it is an ethical industry in the thrall of very poor management practices and short-term investor expectations. Their very structure induces a kind of sclerosis and risk-aversion that is the very antithesis of innovation.

It is an industry with the conceit of calling itself "innovative" but very much built on 20th century ideas about what corporations are for and what structure they are supposed to assume.

Despite their megabucks, Big Pharma's research productivity is quite poor. They often find themselves looking for products and inventions coming from the universities and other small and more agile organizations (i.e. hungrier and less risk-averse entities). In essence, they are leveraging their considerable skills in manufacturing, regulatory affairs and marketing to sell the inventions of others.

But their work, IS important: my sister, who is living with AIDS, would have died many years ago without the work done by those who have devoted their lives to making other lives better.