| It's a typical engineering fallacy that if you build it they will come. The public, including doctors, have so much information to consume that if they aren't re-educated on treatment choices the drug will die and so too may the company. Advertising is absolutely critical in recouping R&D costs. And that's assuming the drug makes it to market (which a majority do not). >In the United States, it takes an average of 12 years for >an experimental drug to travel from the laboratory to your >medicine cabinet. That is, if it makes it. Only 5 in 5,000 >drugs that enter preclinical testing progress to human >testing. One of these 5 drugs that are tested in people is >approved. |
In the highly specialized field of medicine, you do not need to know about every drug that comes out every year. You only need to know about the handful of drugs that are important to your specialty. Further physicians should be reading medical literature regarding the efficacy of these new drugs and should not be getting their education from a pharmacy rep with a bachelors in communication.
This idea that we wouldn't have any new drugs if American's didn't pay exorbitant fees for pharamaceuticals is completely false. It's a rationalization that we Americans have come up with to feel better about being taken to the cleaners by pharma companies.
I had the displeasure of working for a company that was bought out by a multi-national pharma. The crap they pulled disgusted me to the point that I quit without another job lined up. If you think contributing to a company that improves click rates is pointless, try contributing to a company that uses its leverage to eviscerate its customers on their deathbeds. It's infuriarating.