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Drug Companies More Worried About Advertising than Innovation
Throughout history, American drug companies have always had an outstanding margin of profit. There is nothing wrong with that, after all, they are a company and need to record profits to please there stockholders like all other companies. But now, drug prices are at an all-time high and drug companies are recording ridiculously high profits.
The American public is beginning to show a growing frustration with the situation. People are beginning to look to Canada as a cheaper alternative to buying from American drug companies. Disgruntled senior citizens are loading up on busses by the thousands and heading to Canada for savings. The American drug market is soon going to see some drastic changes.
In the next few years, the patents on some of the top drugs on the market will be expiring. This will means that the patented drugs that combined for sales of around 35 billion dollars per year will be released for generic production. This happened to Schering-Ploughs drug Claritin, which accompanied for one third of the companies revenue. The company is still trying to recover from the loss.
Even though patents run out on blockbuster drugs all the time, in the past they have had contingency plans. When patents have run out in the past, drug companies had other new drugs to fall back on. Now, drug companies have spent so much time and money advertising current drugs, they have forgotten about research and development. In 2002, seventy-eight new drugs were approved by the FDA. Of those, only seventeen were deemed by the FDA to have new active ingredients, and only seven were found to be improvements over the older drugs. On top of that, of the seven found to be an improvement over the older drug, not one of them came from America.*
Since there are no new drugs on the assembly line, the enormous profits from some of the drug companies are beginning to fall. And since investors are looking at how high profits are going to be in the future, many drug companies’ stock prices have plummeted. So how is the industry going to respond to these problems? They are still doing what got them into this situation, spending more money on marketing the same old drugs instead of on research and development of new innovative drugs.
So what do we do to get our prescription medication at a reasonable price in the middle of all this? Do the same thing that the senior citizens are doing, get your medication from Canada. But instead of loading up on a bus, just sit down in front of your computer. Websites like Freebeeforeignpharmacy.com will help you locate Canadian pharmacies and compare their prices to help you find the cheapest price on your prescription medication. Once you find a website that provides your drug, just order it and have it sent straight to your doorstep. For more information on ordering from online foreign pharmacy.
* Statistical information found in the book The Trust About the Drug Companies by Marcia Angell, M.D.
About the Author: Cathlene Martinez has established herself in the online pharmaceutical resource industry. For more related articles visit our blog: Foreign Pharmacy Tips.
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