P
Phyllis
Saw this author on Book C-Span this morning - very interesting:
"The Truth About Drug Companies
The author calls the pharmaceutical industry a ?vast marketing machine? that thrives on monopoly rights and public-sponsored research but produces few innovative drugs.
Peter Meredith
September 07 , 2004
The high price of prescription drugs has put -- and kept -- U.S. pharmaceutical companies in the news recently, but Dr. Marcia Angell argues that problems with the industry run even deeper. In her new book, The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (reviewed in the current issue of Mother Jones), the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine contends that the industry has become a marketing machine that produces few innovative drugs and is dependent on monopoly rights and public-sponsored research.
Angell disputes the industry?s reputation as an ?engine of innovation,? arguing that the top U.S. drug makers spend 2.5 times as much on marketing and administration as they do on research. At least a third of the drugs marketed by industry leaders were discovered by universities or small biotech companies, writes Angell, but they?re sold to the public at inflated prices. She cites Taxol, the cancer drug discovered by the National Institutes of Health, but sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb for $20,000 a year, reportedly 20 times the manufacturing cost. The company agreed to pay the NIH only 0.5 percent in royalties for the drug.
The majority of the new products the industry puts out, says Angell, are ?me-too? drugs, which are almost identical to current treatments but ?no better than drugs already on the market to treat the same condition.? Around 75 percent of new drugs approved by the FDA are me-too drugs. They can be less effective than current drugs, but as long as they?re more effective than a placebo, they can get the regulatory green light.
Finally, Angell attacks major pharmaceutical industry -- whose top ten companies make more in profits than the rest of the Fortune 500 combined -- for using ?free market? rhetoric while opposing competition at all costs. She discusses Prilosec maker Astra-Zeneca, which filed multiple lawsuits against generic drug makers to prevent them from entering the market when the company?s exclusive marketing rights expired. The company ?obtained a patent on the idea of combining Prilosec with antibiotics, then argued that a generic drug would infringe on that patent because doctors might prescribe it with an antibiotic.?
Angell, who is a doctor and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, wants to see the industry reformed. She recently sat down with MotherJones.com to talk about how to ?ensure that we have access to good drugs at reasonable prices and that the reality of this industry is finally brought into line with its rhetoric.?
"The Truth About Drug Companies
The author calls the pharmaceutical industry a ?vast marketing machine? that thrives on monopoly rights and public-sponsored research but produces few innovative drugs.
Peter Meredith
September 07 , 2004
The high price of prescription drugs has put -- and kept -- U.S. pharmaceutical companies in the news recently, but Dr. Marcia Angell argues that problems with the industry run even deeper. In her new book, The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (reviewed in the current issue of Mother Jones), the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine contends that the industry has become a marketing machine that produces few innovative drugs and is dependent on monopoly rights and public-sponsored research.
Angell disputes the industry?s reputation as an ?engine of innovation,? arguing that the top U.S. drug makers spend 2.5 times as much on marketing and administration as they do on research. At least a third of the drugs marketed by industry leaders were discovered by universities or small biotech companies, writes Angell, but they?re sold to the public at inflated prices. She cites Taxol, the cancer drug discovered by the National Institutes of Health, but sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb for $20,000 a year, reportedly 20 times the manufacturing cost. The company agreed to pay the NIH only 0.5 percent in royalties for the drug.
The majority of the new products the industry puts out, says Angell, are ?me-too? drugs, which are almost identical to current treatments but ?no better than drugs already on the market to treat the same condition.? Around 75 percent of new drugs approved by the FDA are me-too drugs. They can be less effective than current drugs, but as long as they?re more effective than a placebo, they can get the regulatory green light.
Finally, Angell attacks major pharmaceutical industry -- whose top ten companies make more in profits than the rest of the Fortune 500 combined -- for using ?free market? rhetoric while opposing competition at all costs. She discusses Prilosec maker Astra-Zeneca, which filed multiple lawsuits against generic drug makers to prevent them from entering the market when the company?s exclusive marketing rights expired. The company ?obtained a patent on the idea of combining Prilosec with antibiotics, then argued that a generic drug would infringe on that patent because doctors might prescribe it with an antibiotic.?
Angell, who is a doctor and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, wants to see the industry reformed. She recently sat down with MotherJones.com to talk about how to ?ensure that we have access to good drugs at reasonable prices and that the reality of this industry is finally brought into line with its rhetoric.?
