<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But isn't one of the major problems the big pharmaceutical companies are facing is the lack of big, blockbuster drugs in the pipeline?If political pressures lower the ability of Big Pharma to recoup the costs of developing new drugs, look forward to no new drugs and a lot of Pharmaceutical Researchers looking for new jobs. Not a pretty picture for anyone, even those who grouse about the cost of their new, still under patent, drug. If you want the stuff that is new, be prepared to pay for the costs of developing it. If you want to only use drugs that are at least 17 years post-patent, you won't pay much for your drugs, but you won't have the best stuff either. If development costs aren't recouped, there WILL BE NO NEW BREAKTHROUGH drugs.
One of the reasons Merck's stock took such a big hit with Vioxx is not only because it was huge revenue producer. Merck's pipeline has run dry of drugs to replace it, and that is the issue.
As patents run out on the old war horse drugs that made the Mercks and Schering Ploughs their cash, there's less to replace them - even without these political pressures.
<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 01, 2004 07:56 AM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>
I'm not an expert on this, but questioning the litigation issue in a conversation I had yesterday, I wondered openly about the future of pharmceutical stocks. The response I got was that you'll see more of the majors buying up smaller companies who have a blockbuster drug or two.
So instead of R&D by the majors, they'll let the small guys do it, then buy them up at a premium.
That's your stock tip for the day.
Well when you have the only agency responsible for the oversight of an industry in said industry's hip pocket, yer gonna have problems. I would say the FDA is probably the most corrupt agency in the entire federal hierarchy of regulatory agencies. Couple that with the fact that the major drug companies know they can sell a flawed drug for many years and make billions in profit before they ever have to worry about lawsuits or even having it pulled from the market. Competition? The major drug companies own the FDA outright. Even if some homeopathic cure for cancer (by way of example) were discovered it would be buried under FDA red tape at the behest of the drug companies and never reach the consumer. People talk about the tobacco industry as an evil in our society but few realize the power and manipulation the drug companies assert over the FDA and legislators.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">GL, interesting perspective you have there, and if you have proof of this you should sing it from the highest housetops. From what I have seen, that is simply NOT TRUE.Originally posted by G L:
Well when you have the only agency responsible for the oversight of an industry in said industry's hip pocket, yer gonna have problems. I would say the FDA is probably the most corrupt agency in the entire federal hierarchy of regulatory agencies. Couple that with the fact that the major drug companies know they can sell a flawed drug for many years and make billions in profit before they ever have to worry about lawsuits or even having it pulled from the market. Competition? The major drug companies own the FDA outright. Even if some homeopathic cure for cancer (by way of example) were discovered it would be buried under FDA red tape at the behest of the drug companies and never reach the consumer. People talk about the tobacco industry as an evil in our society but few realize the power and manipulation the drug companies assert over the FDA and legislators.
Are you saying that a consortium of Big Pharma "owns" the FDA? Wow, I didn't know that they could collaborate on such a huge scale and keep something like that from whistle-blowers.
Are you saying that one company "owns" the FDA? What benefit do they get from it? Any evidence of "favoritism" would be ferreted out faster than you can say "GL is tired of hurricanes".
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And here, for your reading pleasure, is how economists (not the pharma industry) view the reimportation issue.
AL do you not remember (or maybe you missed it entirely from the old Cincinnati.com board?) the fact that I was a whistleblower in re Phoenix International Life Sciences? I turned them into the FDA only to have the FDA lie to protect them, repeatedly, and then dismiss the case outright? I had to put them out of business myself by putting pressure on their drug manufacturer clients. In spite of the number of people the firm made sick, in spite of federal guidelines that were ignored, in spite of firing others who spoke out against company violations of GLP and SOPs, the FDA protected this corporate criminal. I wrote in excess of 5,000 letters and emails to every conceivable level of government official. I was in several local newspaper stories about it and one national newsletter. If you didn't know about my experience in the drug research world I'll gladly post links to some of the news stories (the one in the Cincinnati Enquirer has been buried, I can never locate it and the national newsletter is not available on-line) I didn't make my above statements out of thin air, but from personal experience. And oh yeah, it cost me about $25,000 of my own money from 1997-2000 to do it.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">GL, interesting perspective you have there, and if you have proof of this you should sing it from the highest housetops. From what I have seen, that is simply NOT TRUE.Originally posted by Aurora Leigh:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by G L:
Well when you have the only agency responsible for the oversight of an industry in said industry's hip pocket, yer gonna have problems. I would say the FDA is probably the most corrupt agency in the entire federal hierarchy of regulatory agencies. Couple that with the fact that the major drug companies know they can sell a flawed drug for many years and make billions in profit before they ever have to worry about lawsuits or even having it pulled from the market. Competition? The major drug companies own the FDA outright. Even if some homeopathic cure for cancer (by way of example) were discovered it would be buried under FDA red tape at the behest of the drug companies and never reach the consumer. People talk about the tobacco industry as an evil in our society but few realize the power and manipulation the drug companies assert over the FDA and legislators.
Are you saying that a consortium of Big Pharma "owns" the FDA? Wow, I didn't know that they could collaborate on such a huge scale and keep something like that from whistle-blowers.
Are you saying that one company "owns" the FDA? What benefit do they get from it? Any evidence of "favoritism" would be ferreted out faster than you can say "GL is tired of hurricanes".
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And here, for your reading pleasure, is how economists (not the pharma industry) view the reimportation issue.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thank you, AL. Thank you.
http://www.citybeat.com/1999-09-02/news.shtml
http://www.citybeat.com/1999-09-30/bq.shtml
http://www.citybeat.com/1999-09-09/letters.shtml
Online articles from Cincinnati.com only go back as far as 1999 now and the article about PILS was 11/26/97. The national newsletter was The Food and Drug Inspection Monitor. I was also on the tv show Extra in March 1997 with a coworker who had been fired for rocking the boat over their illegal and dangerous practices.
I had many an interesting conversation with the deputy director of Health Research Group (part of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen). He credited me with the closing of PILS and referred several subsequent news organizations to my attention for a story on drug research fraud. But it was such a big case and so many implications were involved each time a reporter contacted me and dug into it the story was silenced and never run. Oh I'm sure some will read this and say "paranoid" but they would be in the dark. I know, I experienced it. How I even walked away alive I'm not sure.
G L, I remember that story. It does sound like there were corners being cut at Phoenix, who TESTED drugs under contract to the pharmaceuticals. That does not convince me that pharmaceutical companies "own" the FDA.
Clearly you work in an area of the industry that abides by regulations and does not overtly break the law. The aforementioned director of Health Research Group told me what I encountered in re PILS was just the tip of the iceberg. I also encountered far more evidence of general corruption in the industry while writing a book titled "Tilting at Windmills" (never published). Corruption that goes uncorrected because of the industry's political and economic clout.
I don't imply that everyone involved in the pharmaceutical industry is corrupt, and I certainly didn't mean to offend you or suggest you were doing anything improper or immoral in your work. I should have clarified that right away. But when it comes to the top drug companies and upper level management in same, scratch anyone of them and you'll find a criminal...
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ok...back to where we started. Evidence? I mean something other than Phoenix, which isn't even a pharmaceutical company.Originally posted by G L:
Clearly you work in an area of the industry that abides by regulations and does not overtly break the law. The aforementioned director of Health Research Group told me what I encountered in re PILS was just the tip of the iceberg. I also encountered far more evidence of general corruption in the industry while writing a book titled "Tilting at Windmills" (never published). Corruption that goes uncorrected because of the industry's political and economic clout.
I don't imply that everyone involved in the pharmaceutical industry is corrupt, and I certainly didn't mean to offend you or suggest you were doing anything improper or immoral in your work. I should have clarified that right away. But when it comes to the top drug companies and upper level management in same, scratch anyone of them and you'll find a criminal...
All we have so far is heresay from some director in Ralph Nader's group.
<font color="#000002" size="1">[ October 01, 2004 03:29 PM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>
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