Rick Allen: “they may be spending millions and millions on contributions to candidates, on TV ads promoting their point of view, or…”

“they may be spending millions and millions on contributions to candidates, on TV ads promoting their point of view, or the feel-good ads about the industry itself as a way of trying to resurrect the industry's image; but it is also the case that many of the drugs that they have been developing these days are so close to drugs that already exist on the market that they cannot get the kind of sales volumes they want without a very heavy investment into direct-to-consumer advertising. Last year the industry spent $2.5 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising. We can feel what has happened to the industry. It really has become a marketing operation. They depend very much on blockbuster drugs. Some of those drugs are blockbuster. This is an industry that does some remarkable things, but they move from the argument that we are earning very high profits right now to the conclusion that we have to sustain those profits at exactly the level we are at; and more particularly, that we have to charge our seniors the highest prices in the world in order to get enough money to do research. That is not true. Just think about it. We are 280 million people in this country. Thirty-nine million are on Medicare. That is a very small percentage of the total market for prescription drugs in this country. There are 330 million people living in Europe, 125 million living in Japan, 25 million living in Canada. There are lots of people around the world who are buying prescription drugs.…”