[wayoutthere]

This has been known for a very long time in pharma circles. Marketing budgets are several orders of magnitude higher than R&D budgets. An extra dollar spent on marketing has much higher returns than an extra dollar spent on R&D. Most of the real "hard science" R&D is paid for with NIH grants.

[sweeneyrod]

> Marketing budgets are several orders of magnitude higher than R&D budgets.

This is a lie. Marketing budgets are approximately equal to R&D (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28212223) so you're off by several orders of magnitude.

> Most of the real "hard science" R&D is paid for with NIH grants.

Also not true. NIH grants are ~$40 billion/year whereas industry R&D are around $80 billion (https://www.statista.com/statistics/265085/research-and-deve...).

There are definitely lots of problems with the pharmaceutical industry, several of which are mentioned in that BBC article. But making hyperbolic claims that they essentially don't do any R&D isn't helpful.

[pgsbathhouse]

>This is a lie. Marketing budgets are approximately equal to R&D

Your own source doesn't even say that. In the exact BBC article you linked:

>But as the table below shows, drug companies spend far more on marketing drugs - in some cases twice as much - than on developing them

Here's some very very basic reading on the subject that you can find in 10 seconds of googling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_marketing

In the literally first sentence on this topic:

>pharmaceutical company spending on marketing far exceeds that of its research budget

Imagine living in a society where supposedly rational, intelligent people hold opinions that don't withstand the test of a few keystrokes; opinions that quite literally aid in the needless death and suffering of others while also just generally being a complete waste of time.

[sweeneyrod]

In the context of a claimed difference of "several orders of magnitude" (i.e. >1000x), a difference of 1-2x rounds down to 1.

If you follow the citations for that Wikipedia claim (a very very basic step) you will see that they don't provide any evidence for an order of magnitudes difference.

I'm not usually in the habit of shilling for Big Pharma, but since you've taken such a condescending tone I'll make an exception and point out that according to that exact Wikipedia article you linked, literally the same paragraph on the topic mentions that the majority of marketing spending is on free samples. Unless you think that drug companies should raise their prices in order to fund more R&D (which would have the same effect as reducing free samples) this doesn't seem very objectionable.