R&D costs are more than covered by the price paid in Canada and indeed most nations; the US is merely funding massive pharma profit margins and fat executive bonuses.

> R&D costs are more than covered by the price paid in Canada and indeed most nations

And you would know... how?

big pharma spends more on marketing than R&D:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-p...

> big pharma spends more on marketing than R&D:

So what? They clearly believe the marketing helps them make more revenue with the drug; that has nothing to do with covering the cost of R&D.

Your argument would make sense if marketing reduced their ROI, but they clearly believe it does the opposite.

I'm sure developers in San Francisco spend more on housing than on professional/personal development, but that doesn't mean one is precluding the other.

I think it demonstrates pharma has excess cash. Also in countries where there’s a public system pharma usually has 0 advertising because people have no choice anyway.

> I think it demonstrates pharma has excess cash.

It's only "excess cash" if you assume the ROI on marketing is negative, which is a bold and unsubstantiated claim.

> Also in countries where there’s a public system pharma usually has 0 advertising because people have no choice anyway.

Direct-to-consumer advertising is only one tiny portion of marketing. European pharmaceutical companies spend massive amounts of money on marketing within Europe.

Why does RÓI have to be negative? Do you think that if marketing has good ROI then whatever money they put in they get back, meaning it creates a positive circle? Am I getting this right?

I can't read your link as it's behind a paywall.

But here's one with unrestricted access [1]: big pharma spends in average 17% of their revenue on R&D, while Apple spends 3%.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060115/how-much-dru...

Edit Here's another link that states the average for Big Pharma for 2018 was 20%

[2] https://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-report/top-10-pharma-r...

If you allow drugs to be imported it will make it impossible for a company to sell the same drug cheaper elsewhere. It will have the same effect, wouldn't it?

The only sane way I can map the problem in question onto your analogy is by subletting rent controlled units, thereby increasing their value and decreasing the value of the uncontrolled unit. I don’t think it’s a good analogy because people have all sorts of subjective bias based on experience. Also real estate is inherently sparse and illiquid. The drug market isn’t sparse and has more liquidity.

I think explaining the economic dynamics directly leads to a self evident conclusion: internationally drug prices would increase as US consumers add to demand on foreign markets. Domestic prices would fall for the same reason

>we would like other countries to pay a bit more too and help shoulder the cost of R&D for new drugs and treatments.

Allowing reimportation would do exactly that by increasing (from zero) US demand for drugs from foreign markets.

EDIT: for explaining why.

What makes you think all that money goes to R&D? Last I checked pharma was making insane profits