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Why do pharmaceutical companies spend so much money on marketing? Why don’t doctors just say no to patients’ requests? Explain. Why does Big Pharma spend so much on lobbying?

Prescription drug is a huge market in Unites States, on average American spent $1,000 per person as of 2013. Unites States has a free-flowing market for drugs which means that pharmaceutical industry can set out their own pricing. This allows them to spend more on Marketing then on R&D as for every dollar spent on R&D 19 dollars goes to marketing. The marketing includes direct-to-consumer marketing and approaching some doctors directly, due to which they influence doctors as well. Their mega profits allow them to spend money on lobbying and further smoothen their way for business.

Subtract the amount it costs to develop a new prescription medication, advertize it, and bring it to market (our book’s quoted prices) from the profit generated for Pradaxa. How much did Boehringer Ingelheim make in profit?

Explain—described in layman’s terms—the kind of law that must be in place to protect the FDA from people like Dr. Wennberg.

The duty of FDA is to protect people’s health through guaranteeing the safe supply of human drugs, biological products, and medical devices. The FDA should place such laws which protect people like Dr. Wennberg and not run away from them. They should develop laws through which physician like Dr. Wennberg have the right to fight against medicines like Orabilex ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"1My0OneD","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(House)","plainCitation":"(House)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":170,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KfR9yuY2/items/2WN4P7U3"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/KfR9yuY2/items/2WN4P7U3"],"itemData":{"id":170,"type":"book","title":"Hearings","publisher":"U.S. Government Printing Office","URL":"https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=kFx1fLPJu08C","author":[{"family":"House","given":"United States Congress"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1964"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (House). They should allow physicians a direct role and voice in FDA through which they can study and analyze different drugs.

What does Martin Shkreli’s email reveal? Is there anything illegal about that? Is there anything unethical about that?

The leaked email of from Martin Shkreli of Turning Pharmaceutical revealed that they raised the price of Daraprim from $1,700 per bottle to $75,000 earning them a huge profit for three years. For a general business it can be counted as free market capitalism but the business of medicine is unique. People don’t buy drugs because they want to people buy drugs because they have to, and people lives are dependent on these drugs. So, if a pharmaceutical company raise the price of a drug they are playing with the lives of people and making a benefit out of it, which is unethical and immoral.

How much did GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Elli Lilly each pay to settle lawsuits against them? Why would a company pay billions instead of proving their innocence in court (assuming they are innocent)?

To pay the lawsuit against them, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Elli Lilly paid $3 billion, $2.3 and $1.4 respectively. In general, pharmaceutical companies paid almost $13 billion in settlements. The main reason for this is that they are involved in off-label marketing and giving kickbacks to physicians for prescribing only recommended drugs. They also align with generic companies in order to keep the prices higher than what it should have been. For them the name of the brands values the most and these settlement payouts are just cost of making millions.

“Doctors in the U.S. are usually required to complete accredited continuing medical education (CME) coursework.” The pharmaceutical industry pays for these training events for doctors and uses this platform to market their products claiming their representatives educate doctors about their new prescription drugs. Why does this increase sales of drugs to patients? Can’t doctors just say no? Give an example from your experience which shows people can’t just say no in such circumstances.

Doctors can’t say no because these pharmaceutical industries usually pay for their CME training programs. Plus, only some of the drugs effect health negatively, majority of them are made to cure people. By participating and paying for training course works they influence on doctors and in turn these doctors feels that they are under immense favor of such companies due to which the prescription of their products comes naturally.

Why did doctors change the levels for high cholesterol? What were levels for high cholesterol before and after the change? How could an experiment be run to prove the original levels were just fine? Explain. Who would have to run such an experiment to change the legal levels back?

The doctors changed the levels of high cholesterol as there was a large number of people suffering from cholesterol in America. The levels of cholesterol before considered that 200 milligrams per deciliter of total cholesterol was the “desirable” level, and 240 mgs was too high. However, these levels have been changed now and are 100 mgs as not “desirable,” 130 to 159 mgs as the “borderline high,” 160 mgs as “high” and 190 mgs as “very high.”

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hepatitis C kills more Americans than any other infectious disease and often leads to a need for liver transplants. The virus has infected an estimated 2.7 to 3.3 million people in the United States. Gilead Sciences Inc. makes Sovaldi and Harvoni, the two drugs that can swiftly cure this disease, but sells them at prices so high that few can afford them (a 12-week course is $85,000).” Doesn’t Gilead Sciences have the right, as all Americans do, to make as much money as they can legally? Give one plausible explanation for why they keep the price that h There are three suggestions at the end of the article for how to make things fair for patients who need drugs in the U.S. while still allowing for pill companies to make money. Pick one of the three suggestions, explain how it would work, then give one positive and one negative for that system. Do you favor it over our current system or not? Explain.

The Gilead Sciences has the right to make money legally and they keep the prices of such drugs high because these diseases are very common in the United States and people have no other option than buying these medicines by any means to save the lives of their loved ones or themselves. Another reason for the high prices of these drugs is that the diseases like Hepatitis C are so infectious that there is a need for highly effective medicines for curing such diseases.

There are three suggestions at the end of the article for how to make things fair for patients who need drugs in the U.S. while still allowing for pill companies to make money. Pick one of the three suggestions, explain how it would work, then give one positive and one negative for that system. Do you favor it over our current system or not? Explain.

One of the suggestions at the end of the article is that the health professionals should give prescribed medicines to people only for some major illnesses. The minor illnesses should be treated by some exercises or other therapies. Patients should not be encouraged to consume pills for every illness. Their mindset about pills as the remedy for every major or minor disease needs to be changed. It may affect the companies that benefit from the people who take pills for every illness they suffer from, but the lives of people are more important than money. The current system would be favored by this step as the people would become healthy. There is no negative aspect of this step for the people but for the companies and their employees.

Work Cited

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY House, United States Congress. Hearings. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964, https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=kFx1fLPJu08C.