<story><title>Big Pharma spends billions more on executives and stockholders than on R&amp;D</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/big-pharma-spends-billions-more-on-executives-and-stockholders-than-on-rd/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blackbear_</author><text>It is true that pharma companies take advantage of publicly funded research, but from there to brining a new drug on the market it takes further 10&amp;#x2F;15 years and 100s million dollars of R&amp;amp;D. A large portion of the cost comes from the fact that most of these projects prove infeasible and are abandoned during development or later during trials.&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of this effort remains unpublished, so I am not sure that the article you cite supports your argument. Most of the research mentioned in that article talks about possible associations between target and disease, which is just the earliest step of drug development.</text></item><item><author>monkburger</author><text>Big Pharma&amp;#x27;s profits are a result of taxpayer funded research via the NIH and others for drug discovery.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ineteconomics.org&amp;#x2F;perspectives&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ineteconomics.org&amp;#x2F;perspectives&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;us-tax-dolla...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Big Pharma has a very powerful lobbying arm that is against Medicare negotiating down prices.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>svara</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s way more than hundreds of millions, it&amp;#x27;s now well over a billion and most of it by a large margin goes into failed programs. Though it does seem to be getting better (or getting worse more slowly?) recently.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;media.nature.com&amp;#x2F;lw1024&amp;#x2F;magazine-assets&amp;#x2F;d41573-020-00059-3&amp;#x2F;d41573-020-00059-3_17934800.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;media.nature.com&amp;#x2F;lw1024&amp;#x2F;magazine-assets&amp;#x2F;d41573-020-0...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eroom%27s_law&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eroom%27s_law&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Big Pharma spends billions more on executives and stockholders than on R&amp;D</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/big-pharma-spends-billions-more-on-executives-and-stockholders-than-on-rd/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blackbear_</author><text>It is true that pharma companies take advantage of publicly funded research, but from there to brining a new drug on the market it takes further 10&amp;#x2F;15 years and 100s million dollars of R&amp;amp;D. A large portion of the cost comes from the fact that most of these projects prove infeasible and are abandoned during development or later during trials.&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of this effort remains unpublished, so I am not sure that the article you cite supports your argument. Most of the research mentioned in that article talks about possible associations between target and disease, which is just the earliest step of drug development.</text></item><item><author>monkburger</author><text>Big Pharma&amp;#x27;s profits are a result of taxpayer funded research via the NIH and others for drug discovery.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ineteconomics.org&amp;#x2F;perspectives&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ineteconomics.org&amp;#x2F;perspectives&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;us-tax-dolla...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Big Pharma has a very powerful lobbying arm that is against Medicare negotiating down prices.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>passwordoops</author><text>Forest for the trees. The main point of the main article still holds true:&lt;p&gt;Big Pharma (and Big Everything, really) consistently spends more on executive compensation and shareholders than R&amp;amp;D. And to the commenters&amp;#x27; point, maybe if they put more of that in R&amp;amp;D, we&amp;#x27;d have more promising and successful targets</text></comment>