For the average person, including me, over the years perscription drugs have been taken and believed they have a good effect on the problem the doctors helped solve. There lies the solution and problem with the Big Phama. We believe the government agencies dealing with approving new drugs has the patient or people taking the drugs as their first priority. We also like our doctor and when he or she recommends a solution – take a drug we generally do.

In the book Death by Prescription by Terence H Young published by Key Porter Books, Toronto, 2009 after his daughter dies from taking a drug, Mr. Young goes through the process of how the drug industry works. At one time, Mr. Young was an elected official and he believed he knew how the system worked, he was surprised to find out he was wrong. The safety of the patient or the average person is not the reason a prime reason why the drug agencies work, it is to help the drug companies sell their drugs. The drug companies or Big Pharma are a sales and marketing company, they have little to do with research and development. In reality, most of the research and development is done in universities using Big Pharma’s money.

There are many myths about Big Pharma and in a book such as Death by Prescription an understanding of how the companies work and continue to work is outlined. In the election of government, who has the most lobbyists and contributes the most money? It is the reason why after a the 20 year patent is running out, the drug companies can make a minor modification from pill to capsule and receive another 20 patent and a new name for the same drug. After 20 years, the generic drug companies can produce the same drug for less money and save consumers, insurance companies  and the government on drug prices.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, some of the Big Pharma stocks have been terrific to own and they have risen in price. If you buy them looking at drugs in the pipeline to see if they have billion dollar drugs, remember effectively Big Pharma are sales and marketing companies who sell to Doctors who write prescriptions. Big Pharma has better information on who writes the prescriptions than the government agencies who should be able to monitor who writes more than normal prescriptions. Big Pharma is profitable, but at least 100,000 lives will be lost due to drugs greatly assisting patients taking the drugs, but do not worry Big Pharma has insurance to mitigate the risk to them. Profits will continue as look as we cititzens look for a cure in the drug store.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.