hmm, how much R&D have you done yourself?
I can tell you from being an active researcher in the field of human proteomics that R&D is by no means a cheap and easy task. You all make it sound like some guy in a white lab coat mixes some chemicals and voila, cure for another disease, lets sell it for tonnes and steal everyones money. As a matter of fact a majority of the profit made from sales is put right back into the R&D, to use an NMR machine for one hour costs more then $1000, reagants can cost more then $900/uL (yes uL, as in 1/1000 of a mL)... To carry out one experiment can take weeks .. the sheer complexity of the human genome and furthermore the human proteome makes it an INCREDIBLY challenging task to isolate and determine what fundamentally is causing the detrimental effect for which a drug must be created. After this tedious and often incredibly long period of time to just determine what proteomically (or genomically) is causing the effect the proteins structure must be elicited. This is another complex process involving many hours on an NMR, or mass spec, and a lot of thought and coffee. Proteins are extremely complex consisting of hundreds to thousands of amino acids, they contain numerous polar regions, are extremely diverse and dynamic, and normally one protein can exist in a number of different 'states' (for lack of a better word). On top of that we are working with incredibly small quantities of these molecules introducing a considerably challenging task of ACCURATELY carrying out this procedure. From here a molecule must be designed .. on paper .. that will inactivate these detrimental proteins etc. Trying to establish a STABLE molecule whos MO structure binds SELECTIVELY to the target protein and then deactivates the protein .. as well as making sure that the molecule wont be metabolized or destroyed through immune response is yet another hurdle to the biochemist and again involves a considerable amount of time on NMR spec/MALDI-TOF etc. So wow we now have a molecule we 'think' will work .. on paper, making it isn't exactly easy either .. a lot of intuitive thought and research must be put in to design the synthesis of this molecule, again no easy task. Finally we have a molecule .. we 'think' will work, we now have to test it .. testing it doesnt mean feeding it to a lab rat and seeing if it dies, a large number of factors must be determined .. uptake time, dosage, metabolic breakdown, antigenicity, storage, adverse affects on other cells, metabolic products, WHETHER IT EVEN WORKS. From here even more time and money is spent trying to scale it up to the human level, FDA approval as i'm sure you already know can take a LONG time, and in that time a lot of money must be spent to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the patients taking this medicine and its effectiveness. I've just used a VERY specific example here to illustrate the issue, normally it is not known that the detrimental effect is being caused by a proteomic or genomic effect, that the problem arises from a toxin released by a bacteria, or a genetic manipulation from a virus, etc. etc. there being hundreds of differnt scenarios. No drug company really makes 'that' much money, it is always an ongoing battle and any profit must be spend on R&D of the next drug .. or else the company will collapse. The reason as has already been stated by someone that drugs are cheaper in Canada is that it is ILLEGAL to distribute the brand named drug to someone if a generic version exists, obviously the generic version will be cheaper because they didnt have to do any work in R&D. The upside to this is that people get their drugs much cheaper, the downside is that the company which is responsible for the creation of this drug is getting little to no sales of this drug once its patent expires (which is not very long actually). To whoever it was that decided to bring Canada into this and start badmouthing Canada, I don't see why you would stir up this thread like that, it was designed to discuss drug costs, not which Country is better ... at any rate if I really felt inclined to I could write a 3000 word essay on all the things that the USA has done to screw itself and other countries up without batting an eye .. but I won't do that because on the same token I have respect for the fact that its a successful country .. and i'm more mature to start ranting Canada Canada Canada (like you seemed to enjoy doing for the USA). The next time you pop a prescription pill try and think about what is actually involved in developing that pill rather then just assuming that you know its some easy task to design a drug.
I had a thread I started...can't find it...where this was all discussed. Bascally I was for socialized medcine but not cripleing an industry with outragous federal price fixing which would never happen anyway with corporate influence... already insurance cos and states like VT maine and oregon are forceing, though collectivism, companies to lower prices in those areas by:
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