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do you know how much it costs to develop a drug and get it approved? the average is 500 million dollars spread over about 8 years. blame the fda after the early 60's for slowing things down too much not the companies who are risking that kind of money to inevitably get ripped off by india.





Give me a break Jamesn, 1 out of every 5 dollars goes to research. The rest goes into advertising and giving "gift" vacations to every family doctor in North America. Even when the economy was in its worst slump recently (2001) the drug companies reigned supreme in profits. Collectively, drug companies in the Fortune 500 topped all 3 of the Fortune magazine's measures of company profitability, according to the magazine's annual analysis of America's most important companies.

Drug companies had the greatest return on revenues, reporting a profit of 18.5 cents for every $1 of sales, which was 8 times higher than the median for all Fortune 500 industries, easily surpassing the next most profitable industry, which was commercial banking with a 13.5% return on revenue.