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While pharmaceutical executives often attempt to portray such consolidation as a means to increase operational efficiency, the report states that “digging a level deeper ‘exposes a troubling industry-wide trend of billions of dollars of corporate resources going toward acquiring other pharmaceutical corporations with patent-protected blockbuster drugs instead of putting those resources toward’ discovery of new drugs.”
Merger and acquisition (M&A) deals are often executed to “boost stock prices,” to “stop competitors,” and to “acquire an innovative blockbuster drug with an enormous prospective revenue stream.”
“Instead of spending on innovation, Big Pharma is hoarding its money for salaries and dividends,” the report says, “all while swallowing smaller companies, thus making the marketplace far less competitive.” […]
“Competition is central to capitalism,” Porter said in a press release introducing the report. “As our report shows, Big Pharma has little incentive to invest in new, critically needed drugs. Instead, pharmaceutical giants are free to devote their resources to acquiring smaller companies that might otherwise force them to compete.”
“Lives are on the line; it’s clear the federal government needs to reform how it evaluates healthcare mergers and patent abuses,” Porter added. […]
THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING
TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES
QUOTATION
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~~Buckminster Fuller
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2003—No conclusive evidence:
Well, even as administration officials hype Powell’s “Adlai moment” at the UN next week, there is still some dampening of expectations:
Officials cautioned that no one photo or piece of evidence will conclusively prove the administration’s case; instead, they describe what they say will be an accumulation of damning details. ”What we’re showing is a pattern of behavior,” a senior administration official said. ”You’re not going to have pictures of warheads.
I think I am finally resolved to the fact that war is inevitable. It’s a shame that Bush is so hell-bent on going to war that he will risk the lives of thousands to do so, and all on circumstantial evidence.
Obviously Saddam is a brutal dictator, and I’m sure he’s got things to hide. But is he a threat to U.S. national security—worth throwing away lives and treasure to depose? That case has not been made. And it won’t be made. But that’s irrelevant to an administration that keeps using discarded “evidence” of a nuclear program (the aluminum tubes) and a hypothetical link to Al Qaeda to justify a war that even super-hawks like Normal Schwarzkopf won’t buy.
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