Book•
The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
01 Jan 2004-
TL;DR: In The Truth About the Drug Companies, Dr. Angell presents the grim details of Big Pharma’s rise to power and the manipulative and downright devious tricks it uses to stay there.
Abstract: “What does the eight-hundred-pound gorrilla do? Anything it wants to.” These are the first words of Chapter One, innagurating the pages of this monumental book with metaphoric clear-seeing that is beyond deniability. Indeed, America has made the drug companies (aka “Big Pharma”) a political and economic behemoth nearly incapable of stopping. A staggering $200 billion is now spent on prescription medication a year, lining the pockets of Big Pharma executives and milking an increasingly parched cash cow. In The Truth About the Drug Companies, Dr. Angell presents the grim details of Big Pharma’s rise to power and the manipulative and downright devious tricks it uses to stay there.
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TL;DR: A detailed analysis based on comprehensive, recent, industry-wide data is presented to identify the relative contributions of each of the steps in the drug discovery and development process to overall R&D productivity and propose specific strategies that could have the most substantial impact in improving R &D productivity.
Abstract: The pharmaceutical industry is under growing pressure from a range of environmental issues, including major losses of revenue owing to patent expirations, increasingly cost-constrained healthcare systems and more demanding regulatory requirements. In our view, the key to tackling the challenges such issues pose to both the future viability of the pharmaceutical industry and advances in healthcare is to substantially increase the number and quality of innovative, cost-effective new medicines, without incurring unsustainable R&D costs. However, it is widely acknowledged that trends in industry R&D productivity have been moving in the opposite direction for a number of years. Here, we present a detailed analysis based on comprehensive, recent, industry-wide data to identify the relative contributions of each of the steps in the drug discovery and development process to overall R&D productivity. We then propose specific strategies that could have the most substantial impact in improving R&D productivity.
2,901 citations
TL;DR: The research and development costs of 106 randomly selected new drugs were obtained from a survey of 10 pharmaceutical firms and used to estimate the average pre-tax cost of new drug and biologics development.
2,190 citations
TL;DR: The results of this national survey indicate that relationships between physicians and industry are common and underscore the variation among such relationships according to specialty, practice type, and professional activities.
Abstract: Most physicians (94%) reported some type of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and most of these relationships involved receiving food in the workplace (83%) or receiving drug samples (78%). More than one third of the respondents (35%) received reimbursement for costs associated with professional meetings or continuing medical education, and more than one quarter (28%) received payments for consulting, giving lectures, or enrolling patients in trials. Cardiologists were more than twice as likely as family practitioners to receive payments. Family practitioners met more frequently with industry representatives than did physicians in other specialties, and physicians in solo, two-person, or group practices met more frequently with industry representatives than did physicians practicing in hospitals and clinics. Conclusions The results of this national survey indicate that relationships between physicians and industry are common and underscore the variation among such relationships according to specialty, practice type, and professional activities.
478 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the broader lessons from mission-oriented programs for innovation policy and indeed policies aimed at investment-led growth, and discuss how to choose and implement missionoriented policies, with an example.
Abstract: This article focuses on the broader lessons from mission-oriented programs for innovation policy—and indeed policies aimed at investment-led growth. While much has been written about case studies on missions, this has not resulted in an alternative policy making toolkit. Missions—in the least—require those tools to be just as much about market cocreating and market shaping, as they are about market fixing. The article reviews the characteristics of mission-oriented programs, ooks at key features of those programs that can provide lessons, and discusses how to choose and implement mission-oriented policies, with an example.
471 citations
Cites background from "The Truth About the Drug Companies:..."
...• NIH: To “seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.”...
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...This suggests that the surge in absolute NIH-related R&D expenditure cannot simply be conceived as resulting from a generalized and proportional increase in total R&D expenditure by the government during downturns, or to simply level the playing field....
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...Moreover, the share of R&D expenditure taken by NIH in total US federal outlays in R&D has increased year on year over the past 50 years....
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...While in some countries this has occurred through public agencies, such as DARPA and NIH mentioned earlier, in others, patient finance has been provided through other institutions, including publicly owned development banks, otherwise known as state investment banks (SIBs) (Mazzucato and Semieniuk, 2017)....
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...From 1936 to 2016, cumulative R&D expenditure by National Institutes of Health (NIH) has amounted to more than $900 billion (in 2015 dollars), and since 2004, it has exceeded $30 billion per year....
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TL;DR: In this paper, an economic analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is presented, which suggests that there is a resource-allocation role for CSR programs in cases of market failure through private-social cost differentials, and also in cases where distributional disagreements are likely to be strong.
Abstract: I propose an economically coherent analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and suggest how it is reflected in financial markets. CSR is defined as a program of actions taken to reduce externalized costs or to avoid distributional conflicts. It is an institution that has evolved in response to market failures, a Coasian solution to some problems associated with social costs. The analysis suggests that there is a resource-allocation role for CSR programs in cases of market failure through private-social cost differentials, and also in cases where distributional disagreements are likely to be strong. In some sectors of the economy private and social costs are roughly in line and distributional debates are unusual: here corporate social responsibility has little role to play. Such sectors are outnumbered by those where CSR can play a valuable role in ensuring that the invisible hand acts, as intended, to produce the social good. It can also act to improve corporate profits and guard against reputational risks.
438 citations
Additional excerpts
...44 Angel (2004)....
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