OPINION:
“Saving lives comes first for drug companies” (Web, Dec. 26) reads like a PR piece for Big Pharma, funded by Big Pharma. “As a percentage of sales revenue, the industry’s total advertising dropped from 6% in 1970 to 3% in 2018” is meaningless and calls into question everything else in the article.
What did revenue do in that same time frame? Did it go up 10-, 20-fold or more? 2018 advertising dollars in 2018 compared to 1970 advertising dollars, adjusted for inflation, would be more informative.
Here’s another one: “From 1989 to 2018 over 50% of the publicly listed U.S. drug makers had negative operating profits each year.” These companies are likely the smaller ones, not the big players, and only have R&D and no or very little sales revenue. Or else they had negative operating profits until they had a drug approved.
JAMES BLASIC
Potomac, Md.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.