> They spend much more on marketing.

This is my pet peeve. If you are going to regurgitate a talking point, please regurgitate the _right_ talking point. They spend more on marketing and administration. You know, useless stuff like HR, IT, etc. What company need stupid stuff like that?

If you're going to make this complaint you should show how much companies spend on admin costs. Clearly the parent comment was making the point that they dislike that some [1] companies spend double on marketing than they do on R&D. I'm sure they also spend money on other essential services (they probably by pens), that's not all that illuminating unless you say how much. 1.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-p...

People may be surprised, but drugs, even really good drugs, need to do some marketing. You can argue over what level of marketing is appropriate, but if you had a great drug and didn't do marketing, you'd take a huge hit to revenue.

Also, pharma marketing is very human resource heavy. You need to hire reps to visit offices. That's not cheap.

I have bought thousands of products in my life, without needing a door to door Saleswoman. Why is pharma special?

I would argue that the amount and detail of information you need to make a decision about a drug is an order of magnitude more than any consumer purchase.

Also, doctor might be prescribing hundreds of different drugs each year and just don't have the time to keep upon the latest and greatest.

I've talked to a handful of doctors who actually appreciate their sales rep. That usually happen when the rep tones down the sales routine and focuses more on helping the doctor do their job.

My understanding is that they have a huge sales force that sells directly to doctors which then also requires a lot of admin.

In any case I hope we can agree that they are highly profitable and could afford to spend more on R&D if they viewed it as worthwhile.