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A comment on The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill. Parent comment

Re:The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill by bosie on Saturday June 01, 2013 @04:06PM (#5805734)
Pharma companies spend twice as much on marketing/advertising for a new drug than on its R&D [1,2].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2174966/ [2] Ben Goldacre. Bad Pharma. 2012. Fourth Estate

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Re:The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill by ams6110 on Saturday June 01, 2013 @04:09PM (#5805753)
Are you contending that if they did not market/advertise their new drugs they more easily recoup their R&D expenses?
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Re:The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill by venomsnake on Saturday June 01, 2013 @05:13PM (#5806039)
No. Effective drugs don't need big marketing budgets. Why? Because they are effective. And health care is market is with fixed demand. If your drug is best in class everyone with this condition will take it. They will go with second third line of defense drugs only if the primary is not suitable in the case (side effects/other conditions).

And if you want to boost the sales of your second line drug convincing people it is the best you are actively hurting the patients.

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Re:The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill by robbiep on Saturday June 01, 2013 @07:07PM (#5806452)
In many other markets (Australia for example) it is illegal to advertise drugs to consumers.

Doctors find out through journal articles etc- there is no need to market to us

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Re:The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill by robotresearcher on Saturday June 01, 2013 @04:35PM (#5805879)
Why not? Doctors are actively interested in useful new things and seek them out. Do you have to "ask your doctor today about" the new chemotherapy?
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