Yes, at their US research labs. Most of these companies do a lot of their research in the US these days and continue to move more R&D to the US. If it's developed in the US by individuals working in the US because the opportunities are in the US, that makes it a US-developed drug. I went through each and every WHO essential medicines drug developed since 2000 and verified where each was developed.
> It's also interesting to note that most of these pharmaceuticals target and _incredibly small_ number of people worldwide at outrageous costs.
As someone that uses an orphan drug developed in the US to improve my quality of life, I'm glad. Do you want to take that option away from me and others like me?
I don't believe that medicine is a zero-sum game, but I _really_ wonder if a country where thousands of people die from not being able to afford relatively accessible medication is spending its money wisely.
It's not zero sum, but there absolutely are tradeoffs and everyone championing the national healthcare model used in countries like Canada and those in Europe are being willfully blind to the collateral damage to US-developed medical innovation.
When thousands of people die because treatment doesn't even exist for them, where is that accounted for? My father has a disease that he is likely going to die from and most of the research done on that disease is done in the US and almost everything I read on this disease is published by US-based researchers.
And the information on the pharmaceuticals involved fails to mention the feeder research that comes from universities in Cambridge, Zurich, London, Tokyo, etc. Most of this had gigantic participation of state research institutions, and if you look at the American pharma companies, almost all are based and house most of their research efforts in the state of New York and New Jersey, Massachussets, and the Bay Area, to the exclusion of pretty much everywhere else.
That makes for a great case of the utility of the well-funded research universities in forming staff for pharma, but it's not exactly a proof that any particular model of funding for pharma works better than others.
It's also interesting to note that most of these pharmaceuticals target and _incredibly small_ number of people worldwide at outrageous costs. Not to take merit away from the huge research efforts, but honestly it just shows where profit-driven research efforts go instead of rational, nation-wide public health initiatives that are objectively far better at increasing quality of life for entire populations.