Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15997

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Weiss D, Naik P, Weiss R.
From the analyst's couch: The 'big pharma' dilemma: develop new drugs or promote existing ones?
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 2009 Jul; 8:(2):533-534
http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v8/n7/full/nrd2923.html

Abstract:

Pharmaceutical companies decide how much to invest in developing new drugs and promoting existing ones, thereby influencing the rate of drug discovery and the state of biomedical research funding . The relative emphasis on innovation compared with marketing depends on how these activities affect the short-term profitability and the long-term value of the company. To understand why companies invest extensively in promoting existing products when drug discovery seems to be their core value-generator, we examined the spending on research and development (R&D) versus sales and marketing by pharmaceutical companies over the past three decades…