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Why does it take so much money to bring drugs to the market and what does Big Pharma get for their investment?

“A report by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development has cited clinical trials as the main contributor to the upward cost spiral in bringing a new prescription drug to market in the United States. The cost to bring a new drug to market now averages more than $880 million and extends over 10 to 15 years.”1

Some feel that it is actually under $200 million. Nevertheless, who are these large sums $200-800 million paid out to for drug development? As stated above “clinical trials [are] the main contributor to the upward cost spiral”.

Then there are the costs of expensive FDA personnel “We assemble a team of physicians, statisticians, chemists, biologists, microbiologists, pharmacologists, and other scientists to review the sponsor’s data and proposed labeling for the drug.”2

The Medical Bureaucracy Is Like An Expensive Mortgage
With the very expensive process in place before drug delivery to the public what happens when an inexpensive non-patentable product shows promise as a cancer treatment?

A promising well known compound has been found effective in some cancers as reported in Newsweek of January 23, 2007 from the journal Cancer Cell. The lead author, Dr. Evangelos Michelakis stated “… dichloroacetate, or DCA, a drug that kills cancer cells by exploiting a fundamental weakness found in a wide range of solid tumors…One of the great things about DCA is that it’s a simple compound, in the public domain, and could be produced for pennies a dose…But that’s also a problem, because big drug companies are unlikely to spend a billion dollars or so on large-scale clinical trials for a compound they can’t patent.”3.

If this product was sent to the FDA with no Big Pharma champion, who would pay the FDA personnel the huge sums of research dollars to check it out? Therefore, this promising effective product will probably never see the light of day.

Why does the Cancer Establishment Only Promote Pharmaceuticals?

It would be wonderful if the Cancer Establishment decides what’s best for patients based on safety and effectiveness from treatments. Is this the case? Let Dr James Carter, M.D. a former Oncologist (Cancer Specialist) give his expert opinion from his book - “Racketeering in Medicine: The Suppression of Alternatives” –

“May we assume that objectivity goes hand in hand with scientific inquiry? No. Corporations now control the practice of medicine with the weight of their wallets. Driven by the stock market, medicine is embroiled in an economic turf war….The financial giants of business and industry and their corporate sponsored philanthropies, such as the American Cancer Society, spend and lobby mightily for laws representing their investments.” Laws to ensure the use of drugs and not alternatives for cancer.

A newspaper article reported on a cancer patient and former detective who used his training to gather evidence, sort information, and interview people who had experience with cancer. “I learned that making money, not finding cures, is what conventional medicine is interested in.”

The article also stated “Indeed, the bible for those seeking well-researched information about complementary cancer care, Choices in Healing by Michael Lerner, agrees that the pharmaceutical industry is a very powerful force in American science, medicine, business and politics. “The industry must make large profits to realize a return on investment, particularly in a regulatory system where it costs $100 to $200 million to bring a new drug to market. In this environment, drugs that cannot be patented are of little financial interest to the industry.”4

Like an expensive mortgage one has to pay off, you can’t afford to take a cut in pay if you’re trying to keep up with your payments. Similarly only the billions of dollars invested by Big Pharma that delivers expensive drugs can pay the huge Medical Bureaucracy. Inexpensive alternatives don’t have a chance even if they are safe and effective.

As can be seen the almighty dollar plays a significant determining factor on a patients treatment options. And Big Pharma’s Big Bucks Controls Medicine - the Medical Establishment wouldn’t have it any other way.

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About the Author

Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Dennis will cut through all the propaganda and give you the real facts about what really works to make you healthier and happier. Visit his website Get A Better Life Today.

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1.http://www-306.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/cs/JKIN-6MLTSH
2.Ms. Theresa Mullin Ph.D, Associate Commissioner Office of Planning and Evaluation. Food and Drug Administration to the The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health, Prepared Witness Testimony, NIH: Moving Research from the Bench to the Bedside.
3.Newsweek of January 23, 2007
4.Sacramento News and Review

In Medicine he who ‘controls the purse strings controls the agenda’!

“The medical and scientific establishments have (largely through the fact that they have sold out to the enormously wealthy and powerful international pharmaceutical industry) obtained more or less complete control over politicians and the media.” –Vernon Coleman M.D.1

Who does this physician say really controls “the medical and scientific establishment”? The “… powerful international pharmaceutical industry “

How does Big Pharma exert its control over Medicine?

Some interesting headlines and quotes from articles in the Medical Literature that shows how Medicine ADMITS it has “sold out:” to ‘Big Pharma’-

The headline – “Pharmaceutical advertising revenue and physician organizations: how much is too much?”

The quote - “potential financial conflicts of interest arising from pharmaceutical advertisements in medical journals may be substantial.” 2

The headline – “Editor claims drug companies have a “parasitic” relationship with [Medical] journals”3

The headline – “Commercial bias in medical journals, Commercial influence and the content of medical journals.”

The quote – “How confident should we be in the objectivity of medical journals? Do commercial biases play a part in determining what appears in print? …Articles in medical journals that criticise the drug industry can result in substantial loss of advertising revenue.”4

The headline – “The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It”

The quote - “There is no question in my mind that medical researchers, educators, and clinicians have been corrupted by their close and lucrative ties to industry…”5

The headline - “How tainted by commercial conflicts has medicine become?” Lancet

The quote – “Heavily, and damagingly so.”6

The U.S. has the best Scientists and Governmental Authorities that Money Can Buy!

To show that ‘vested interests’ influence is an ongoing problem and not just something recent, in the book ‘Confessions of a Medical Heretic’ by Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D. reported:

“In 1972, Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, then of Case-Western Reserve University, one of the world’s authorities on chemical causes of cancer and birth defects, told the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs that “the National Academy of Sciences is riddled with conflict of interest.” He reported that panels that decide on crucial issues such as safety of food additives frequently are dominated by friends or direct associates of the interests that are supposed to be regulated. “In this country you can buy the data you require to support your case,” he said.”7

The FDA is a “partner” of the Pharmaceutical Industry –

In an unusually candid comment for a senior government official Dr. Herbert Ley, former FDA commissioner, remarked: “The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It Isn’t. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it’s doing are as different as night and day.”8

That’s because –”Dr SidneyWolfe of Public Citizen told the BMJ that the FDA now views industry [Pharmaceutical], instead of just the public, as its client…”9

How does Big Pharma exert its control over the Media?

The Pharmaceutical Industry co-opts the news media as well because by spending billions of dollars on advertising this gets them a lot of free unpaid advertising as well.

The headline –
“Hype in health reporting: “checkbook science” buys distortion of medical news.”

The quote – “…Much of the media coverage of health news stories is based on public relations efforts on behalf of the companies that sell the products, including pharmaceutical companies, diet clinics, or doctors selling new techniques…All involve subtle strategies whereby physicians and other experts paid by corporate interests are influential because they are perceived to be objective medical experts.”10

The headline – “The Commercialisation of Medical and Scientific Reporting”11

Key points –

• Commercial influences creates unrealistic success for medical research
• Commercial interests subtly use the media as their representatives
• “medical news is actually unpaid advertising.”
•Commercial interests use perceived independent university representatives for their authoritative and trusted voice as part of their marketing agenda.

Surely Charities Aren’t Influenced By ‘Dirty Money’ As Well?

“Corporate Money Co-Opts Nonprofit Groups - Critics Silenced & Friends Won Through Corporate Donations” - from Center for Science in the Public Interest.12

Corporate Money Co-Opts Nonprofit Groups “Corporate financial support of many of the country’s most prominent health-related nonprofit organizations threatens the independence and credibility of such groups… More than 170 disease-related charities, health-professional societies, and university-based institutes enjoy the largesse of food, agribusiness, chemical, pharmaceutical, and other corporate interests, but that generosity may exact too high a price on an important sector of American life, charged the report.”

They are in fact another part of the advertising and promotion of ‘Big Pharma’, that’s why they are not interested in cures.

Let’s see Medicine and Scientific Researchers, Governmental Authorities, the Media, Charities and Big Pharma are all really interested in money. Where does that leave poor little sick you, with a chronic illness looking for help. Very low on the ‘Totem Pole’ I’d say.

Summing up is an appropriate quote from former U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.” “Real money” buys ‘Big Pharma’ what it wants, control and shareholder value and who cares about curing patients.

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About the Author

Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Dennis will cut through all the propaganda and give you the real facts about what really works to make you healthier and happier. Visit his website Get A Better Life Today.

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1. Dr. Vernon Coleman
2. Glassman PA, Hunter-Hayes J, Nakamura T. West J Med 1999;171: 234-8
3. Eaton L, BMJ 2005;330:9 (1 January),
4. Lexchin J, BMJ 2006;332:1444-1447 (17 June),
5. Marcia Angell M.D. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
6. Just How Tainted Has Medicine Become? (Editorial). Lancet, Apr. 6, 2002;359:1167.
7. Confessions of a Medical Heretic by Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D.
8. Minnesota Wellness Publications, Inc.
9. Jeanne Lenzer, FDA’s counsel accused of being too close to drug industry. BMJ 2004;329;189-doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7459.189
10. International Journal of Health Services Issue: Volume 33, Number 2 / 2003 Pages: 383 - 389
11. Caulfield T (2004) The Commercialisation of Medical and Scientific Reporting. PLoS Med 1(3): e38
12. Center for Science in the Public Interest

Most physicians are reluctant to recommend herbs and or vitamin supplements. However what is their personal consumption of these products.

An interesting study was published by the The Journal of Herbal Pharmacotherapy in 2006 (PubMed), on the use of herbs by health care professionals. Now this doesn’t necessarily apply to all such workers. The survey was for those with an interest in herbal therapies. These individuals who took the initiative to enroll in courses on herbs would be higher than the norm. However the number of these participants using herbs was extremely high and the breakdown was most interesting.

Results of the survey of 1249 health care professionals -
51% reported using an herb in the last week.

The breakdown –

• physician assistants or
• nurse practitioners (63%)
• clinical nurses (59%)
• HCP students (52%)
• physicians (48%)
• dietitians (40%)
• pharmacists (37%)

Common herbs taken were -

• green tea (24%)
• flax seed (18%)
• chamomile (11%)
• aloe vera (8%).

Factors associated with herb use among others included having increased knowledge of herbs and dietary supplements.

The impressive part is that knowledgeable health care workers including physicians take herbs even with the continual negative propaganda that spews forth from the Medical Establishment through the Major News Media backed by Federal Agencies and Big Pharma, that tries to paint such products as dangerous.

Cardiologists Take Vitamin E to Heart

Despite the scare that has been in the literature by the Medical Establishment that caused many people to stop taking Vitamin E, Cardiologists (heart doctors) continued to take Vitamin E for prevention. According to a 2001 American Journal of Cardiology survey almost 50% of these specialists take this supplement, more than double the general population. As reported in PRNewswire/ via NewsEdge Corporation-

“More cardiologists take antioxidant supplements than take aspirin as a preventive measure against heart attacks,” the Cornell publication noted, citing a study published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

“Among l8l doctors surveyed, 44 percent take Vitamin E, Vitamin C or beta- carotene (alone or in combination) while 42 percent take aspirin. About 28 percent take both
antioxidants and aspirin.

“Vitamin E was the most common antioxidant vitamin taken, most often at a daily dose of 400 IU (international units).”

Perhaps this is because they are aware of the properly done studies that showed the good results in prevention of heart attacks, like the study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients studied - “…39,910 U.S. male health professionals 40 to 75 years of age who were free of diagnosed coronary heart disease, diabetes,”

They achieved – “…lower risk of coronary disease among men with higher intakes of vitamin E…”

The results – “…provide evidence of an association between a high intake of vitamin E and a lower risk of coronary heart disease in men.”

What was surprising was that about 40% of Cardiologists recommend Vitamin E supplements, which is much higher than family physicians.

Many physicians may not say to take vitamins and or herbs but - Do As They Do, Not As They Say. Take supplements if you need them.