- Worldwide sales > $145 billion/year
- US = Largest markets (40 % of worldwide
sales)
- Sales for the 10 largest drug companies = $28
billion in 2000, $37 billion in 2001
- Tax breaks - can deduct marketing and R & D
expenses
- 8 out of 25 most profitable U.S.
companies are pharmaceutical
companies
• Drug company mergers:
- Pfizer-Warner-Lambert,
- Upjohn-Pharmacia,
- Glaxo-Wellcome-SmithKliine Beecham, etc.
- Pfizer acquired Pharmacia in 7/02 for $60
billion to become the world’s most
powerful drug conglomerate
Pharmaceutical Manufacturer’s
Association and Medical Device
Manufacturer’s Association are powerful
lobbies.
U.S. only large industrialized country not regulating drug
prices and the only major economic power that allows an
inventor to patent a medicine (as opposed to the methods and
processes used to produce it).
Elderly represent 12% of U.S. population, yet
account for 33% of drug expenditures.
17% of the 37 million elderly Medicare patients
are poor or near poor (incomes less than
$7,309 or $9,316 respectively).
The 64% of elderly Medicare enrollees with no
coverage for outpatient drug costs are sicker
and poorer then their counterparts with
supplemental insurance..
Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration
Act (1984) requires bioequivalence, rather than
therapeutic equivalence.
