The development of novel medicine is a long and very expensive process. A single drug can take up to 15 years to be available in pharmacies. These 15 years cost a pharmaceutical company up to $2.6 billion for each success. Each of these successes a…
The development of novel medicine is a long and very expensive process. A single drug can take up to 15 years to be available in pharmacies. These 15 years cost a pharmaceutical company up to $2.6 billion for each success. Each of these successes are the single success in a pile of failures. This large time delay, huge cost and cost to resources, staff and facilities makes it necessary to charge a disproportionate cost. This cost is both protected and facilitated by patent law.
It is a complex picture and many people often struggle with individual elements. Most do not grasp the bigger picture of all the components and how they interact. Cracked makes a perfect example of this in a 2016 YouTube video called “If Drug Companies Were Honest - Honest Ads”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbFYsYMA3No)
The problem of drug development, the costs of drugs to the public and the incorrect perception can be summarized in these 4 points:
- Only the wealthy can afford medicine.
- Drug patents are the be all and end all of medication.
(Patent law; https://youtu.be/7-lNLq2v-Aw)
- That drug companies do not develop medication in house.
(Bioprospecting ; https://youtu.be/p8lNVYGkd9M)
- Drug patents are a profitable area of business.
( Clinical trials ; https://youtu.be/EOF6crgBsfU)
(Animal research models ; https://youtu.be/cm4RxJMhsTU)
These 4 topic areas have been addressed in part before.
Factors that further influence the cost are simple market share economics. The value of drug A to pharmaceutical company 1 is going to drop after the patent expires. When company 2 sells a generic version of drug A they get to make massive profits by comparison. Company 2 can do this because their shareholders have a far lower expectation from their dividends. This combines both the issues of retail economics (the lowest price product tends to sell best) and the the obligations of companies to their share holders.
This is compounded by the declining number of drugs being bro..
