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In the end, though, the argument against the proliferation of so much corporate medical research is not about vilifying corporations for the fact that they make profit-based decisions. The problem is simply that when it comes down to it, these profit-based decisions have too much of an impact on the medical field as a whole. While some corporate involvement is fine, and even beneficial, considering the ability of a corporation to work internationally and pool resources in labs with increasing amounts of research experience, the entire range of research only coming out of these labs where profit is the main goal leaves the field sorely lacking in areas that society simply can’t ignore. Though revenue potential might be what makes this current climate hostile to corporations researching neglected medicines, the neglect of those medicines makes this current climate hostile towards the entire populace. The real solution lies in more publicly funded research, which would leave us with the ability to not only stop leaning so heavily on companies that can pull the rug out from under us at a moment’s notice, but also the ability to research simply for the greater good and the advancement of a field necessary to the wellbeing of people in any and all walks of life. Publicly funded research on drugs which are beneficial to areas of medicine that have stagnated for too long not only relieves the pressure on corporations but also gives us the information we really need to continue to

There are multiple health concerns worldwide and more and more drugs are needed every day. Many drugs however, are extremely expensive to develop, test, and produce. According to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (2002), it costs up to $802 million to bring a new drug to the market. In 2002, pharmaceutical companies spent $34 billion in research and development (Center-Watch, 2003). In addition to the costs, the overall time from the discovery to approve and market the drug can take up to 15 years.

Pharmaceutical companies are provided with temporary monopoly rights on the production of new drugs which result in a higher cost on consumers. If competing companies were allowed to produce generic forms of those drugs, consumers will be able to afford those medications even in cases where those consumers have no insurance coverage. The company responsible for developing and inventing the original medication could be offered incentives to invent in the future by either obtaining tax breaks or NIH funding for future research. They could even be offered a percentage of the sales of the generic drugs. Economist Gary S. Becker advocates dropping many FDA requirements that, in his opinion, provide no additional safety measures but rather delay the development of new drugs.[12] Betamethasone, for example, has been part of the standard prenatal care in Europe since the late 1970’s while it got adopted in the U.S. after 1997. On many occasions, the FDA ignores all scientific evidence concerning certain drugs because the manufacturer did not follow their mandated bureaucratic standards.

In 2015, the pharmaceutical industry spent over 27 billion dollars on advertising. The two greatest components of this effort were promotional advertising and free medication sampling, which the pharmaceuticals invested 15.5 and 5.7 billion dollars respectively (“Persuading the Prescribers”). Promotional advertising involves direct contact with health professionals, the most common being extravagant lunch conferences held for physicians and their staff. On the other hand, sampling involves distributing free sample of medications to physicians, who then have a choice of providing these samples to patients. As a result of these methods, the industry has seen revenue around $400 billion with 90% of physicians having a relationship with a drug company (Campbell 2007). Moreover, the prices of prescriptions continue to rise; a copay of a generic drug is $11.72, preferred brand drug is $36.37 and a specialty drug is $58.37 (Coleman and Geneson 2014). Although the profits are immense in the numbers demonstrated above, it is no surprise when pharmaceutical drug companies elevate their prices even more. For instance, recently Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of their medication Daraprim from $13.50 to $750. Keep in mind, this medication is used for threatening parasitic infections, aids, and cancer with alternative options currently found to be inefficient (Pollack 2015). Another example of this practice involves cycloserine, a drug used to

Improvements in health care and life sciences are an important source of gains in health and longevity globally. The development of innovative pharmaceutical products plays a critical role in ensuring these continued gains. To encourage the continued development of new drugs, economic incentives are essential. These incentives are principally provided through direct and indirect government funding, intellectual property laws, and other policies that favor innovation. Without such incentives, private corporations, which bring to market the vast majority of new drugs, would be less able to assume the risks and costs necessary to continue their research and development (R&D). In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates. The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that reason. By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

In the pharmaceutical world, payers have switched to the generic brand over the brand-name drugs (The Commonwealth Fund, 2016). Although efforts to slow down the costs of healthcare might have work a little bit. A recent report shows spending has grew 5.7 percent in the past year (Altarum Institute, 2015).

Prescription drug prices are on the rise in the United States. Currently, the United States does not implement a price control on prescription drugs. Every day the supply and demand for prescription drugs fluctuates. Pharmaceutical companies produce drugs that are necessary for survival. Therefore, it is necessary for research and development to continue in the United States. Those suffering the effects of exorbitant prices must do so until a generic form of a prescription drug is produced. Once approved by the FDA, new drugs will make their appearance on the market and patients will no longer suffer financially. Until then, it is necessary for pharmaceutical companies to price their drugs based on the idea of supply and demand. This produces the profit used to fund research. Price controls discourage innovation. If a price control were set in place, of course the price of prescription drugs would decrease. However, the development of new drugs decreases with it. Today’s generation would benefit from lower prices, while future generations would suffer from the loss of drug innovation.

U. S. citizens pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world. This is an injustice that must be corrected. The "U.S. forbids the import of prescription drugs by anyone other than the original U.S. manufacturer, and even then only when the drugs meet all the approval requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)" (Barlett & Steele, 2004). Prescription drug prices are outrageously high in the United States because of the influence of advertising on consumer purchasing, the misleading statements by pharmaceutical companies about the cost of research and development of new drugs, the manipulation of patent laws, the antiquated laws regarding importation of

If congress would focus on making generic drugs available the cost of prescriptions would not be as high, and Americans could save approximately $35 billion during the next decade. Compared to $72 a month for brand name drugs, generic versions average $17 a month or 25 to 89 percent lower. Under current legislation original manufacturers of a drug may file multiple lawsuits to prevent other companies from producing a generic version of their drug after the patent runs out. Each lawsuit that is filed delays the production of the generic version by 30 months. If the new bill is passed only one lawsuit will be allowed which would speed the production of generic drugs. The proposed law would also decrease the time it

A lot of people, particularly the patients who need them, are beginning to wonder why American drug prices are so high. It makes sense why the pharmaceutical companies are selling at the prices they do: they are a business; and they want to, above all else, make a profit. But the real question is: what are all of the

After the FDA banned tryptophan supplements, much controversy has been raised concerning the subject. “Critics point out that tryptophan supplements, aside from those produced by Showa Denko using genetically engineered bacteria, have never been shown to contain toxins” (Dick, 2002). Only one company produced a toxic supplement, and was manufactured in a unique way at that. Many disagree on whether the ban was formed to protect consumers from a deadly virus or because of political favoritism within the FDA, thus the matter has been heatedly debated from tryptophan’s banning in 1989 to the present

Drug prices are set by pharmaceutical companies to cover research and development costs. While R&D costs clearly need to be covered, markets in developed countries already pay for most R&D of new products. Because of this, it makes moral and economical sense to establish a two-tiered pricing system; for R&D costs to be paid for by developed countries, allowing significantly reduced prices to be charged in developing countries.

Thus, rendering ongoing research completed outside of the intentions and profit-based primary desired outcomes nonexistent. This stunts potential progress regarding specific biomarkers that could be targeted for pharmaceutical treatments. These uncharted biomarkers have the potential to bridge the 'therapeutic gap' between company investments and incoming profit from diagnoses but, if not seen as immediately profitable, companies may intentionally overlook these potential groundbreaking discoveries with profit rather than public health as a priority (Husi, Fearon & Ross, 2011).

This enabled numerous “me too” drugs to achieve satisfactory returns on investment. Imitating a known drug reduced R&D risk considerably, while the marketplace was open to products offering minor advantages such as a more convenient dosage with fewer side effects, but with much the same therapeutic outcome. Generics legislation had a major impact on the industry, providing incentives for innovation and a race to market. The time during which R&D costs could be recouped was drastically curtailed, putting upward pressure on prices. By the end of the 1970s generic entrants and more stringent controls on clinical trials had led to substantial increases in R&D spending.

Although R&D has been retained by the large pharmaceutical firms, there has been a continuous decline in the R&D productivity. Controlling R&D is imperative to the success of a Pharmaceutical firm. However, as the pharmaceutical industry is maturing, there are diminishing returns to the R&D investment. Fewer and fewer blockbuster drugs are being discovered and therefore R&D is not the most value adding component in the value