Big Pharmas strategy in a nutshell

Very emotional but right article about the macro-strategy of Big Pharma. Just a couple of quotes:  

Pharmaceutical companies have to spend more on marketing and advertisement because most prescriptions being introduced on the market are not new drugs, but merely imitations of already existing medicines. The lion’s share of this “research and development” either goes towards copying another company’s pill or tweaking the molecular formula of one of their own drugs that’s lost its patent. How many prescription nasal allergy sprays are advertised on television? Do we really need Pfizer’s Lipitor and AstraZeneca’s Crestor if both lower cholesterol? Or what about Nexium — the “healing purple pill” — that was introduced only after Prilosec lost its patent status and became available over the counter? The examples are endless.

Sometimes these copy-cat drugs are actually more dangerous than the ones they’re replacing. Vioxx, for instance, was a hugely profitable drug despite the fact that it was no more effective than aspirin and significantly more fatal.

 

These billion-dollar companies don’t market their drugs in order to educate us. They do it to secure their own piece of the lucrative drug market. Since there are a handful of other drugs on the market that do exactly the same thing, the aim of these marketing campaigns is to make their brand name and their pill the one that doctors are familiar with and prescribing. The pharmaceutical industry spends nearly $25 billion on things like pens, clocks, sporting event tickets and vacations that advertise to doctors and medical students. This calculated investment provides these mega-corporations enormous returns.

Additionally, pharmaceutical companies consistently seek to create lifestyle drugs — drugs that healthy people take to improve appearance or performance. Nearly every major pharmaceutical company is producing drugs for conditions like hair loss, acne, rosacea or erectile dysfunction. Pharmaceutical companies invest in prescriptions that Americans can afford and believe they need while neglecting to invest in cures and preventive treatments for diseases like malaria that are decimating the developing world.

Well, very brief but informative. Nothing to add or exclude…