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>The little-known structures in tax-friendly destinations have contributed to the 15 pharmaceutical firms amassing profits of €580 billion in the last five year
by pompino 2y ago
>The little-known structures in tax-friendly destinations have contributed to the 15 pharmaceutical firms amassing profits of €580 billion in the last five years.
>This amount outweighs their research and development (R&D) costs, despite the industry's frequent claim that high drug prices allow them to innovate and design new drugs.
R&D is one thing, but most drugs fail at the clinical trial stage. This money (hundreds of millions per drug) is just gone, unlike R&D which might result in new tech or at least a patent. For Oncology its even worse, its close to a 95% failure rate. Simply taxing companies won't make their drugs successful. Large pharma companies rely on a few blockbuster products for their profits and they milk them dry. This is standard corporate greed/behavior, but it certainly seems offputting because we're dealing with peoples lives. Personally, I think its inevitable that there is going to be some form of nationalization for a protected class of life-saving medication.
https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/clinical-trials-success-rate/ https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/clinical-trials-success...
- tomrod 2y agoI might be mistaken, but don't c-corporations split out R&D (money invested back into the company) from profit? I'll admit I'm not as well read on the day-to-day reporting as I'd like to be.
- mikeyouse 2y agoProfit is what is left over after R&D - they can choose to invest those profits into future R&D, or far more frequently, just pay out the profits to owners as share buybacks or dividends.
- Aerroon 2y ago>Personally, I think its inevitable that there is going to be some form of nationalization for a protected class of life-saving medication. Wouldn't it make sense for governments to just run their own drug manufacturing company? All the drugs from expired parents are free game.
- jstanley 2y agoIt might do if they had a chance of running them efficiently.
- alan-hn 2y agoYea its a shame that public services get undermined and underfunded at every turn
- coretx 2y agoPatents are a monopoly. Efficient resource allocation is therefore impossible.
- toast0 2y agoYou could concentrate on patent expired drugs that cost the most on an annual usage basis. Yeah, that leaves out the newest meds, but you'd still make a dent, and every year, you get cooler stuff to make that's already been market tested.
- coretx 2y agoNo, because patients deserve the best or most effective drug, not the cheapest. Unless you'd like to put a price on human life that is. Also, meds don't hit the market before they are tested... Testing meds is part of the resource allocation problems because cheap & effective off-label use won't be researched & tested because there is not enough money to be made...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jorams 2y ago> R&D is one thing, but most drugs fail at the clinical trial stage. This money (hundreds of millions per drug) is just gone, unlike R&D which might result in new tech or at least a patent. Are you saying the clinical trial stage is somehow not part of R&D spending? It sounds like quite obviously research to me, but I'm not familiar with how it's actually reported.
- lawlessone 2y ago>This money (hundreds of millions per drug) is just gone, Is it completely wasted? we learn something doesn't work. It's not fantastic like it would be to find drugs that cure things , but we still learn.
- pompino 2y agoThe industry may learn from failures, but the shareholders of private companies want a return on their investment. I sure as heck don't want my 401k tied to oncology.
- lokar 2y agoMuch of the early development of novel new treatments is funded by venture capital and early IPOs. The big players buy them out when most of the risk is gone and it’s time to scale up.