Re:Cancer Doctor Leading the Attack on Astronomical Drug Prices
by higherpurpose on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @06:23AM
(#9651619)
Or the pharma industry has become like Hollywood where it prefers to rehash a known drug, get a new patent on it, and make a few extra billion dollars for relatively low cost, instead of trying to innovate and "risk" more money in multiple projects that may or may not succeed.
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Re:Cancer Doctor Leading the Attack on Astronomical Drug Prices
by Brakenshire on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @07:11AM
(#9651756)
Also, more profitable to spend money on advertising to maximize the return on existing treatments, than on trying to develop new drugs.
The current pharmaceutical market unfortunately seems to behave in odd ways.
Re:Cancer Doctor Leading the Attack on Astronomical Drug Prices
by fennecfoxen on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @12:41PM
(#9653870)
It behaves in perfectly rational and understandable ways that correspond directly with the way it's incentivized. Developing new drugs is expensive, getting them approved is more expensive, and there's no guarantee it will work or be approved.
As a corporate entity, drug companies are capable of deploying investors' capital in a variety of ways. If they neglected the ways that actually made money, they would be short on investors pretty quickly.