Silly Little Country

Big Pharma

I have long held somewhat mixed feelings (unlike at least one of my commenters) about large international pharmaceutical companies. I very much enjoy reading Derek Lowe's weblog, which shows me that working in pharmaceuticals is not unlike working in software, with all the risks and uncertainties, and the great problem that manufacturing costs pale beside development costs (a point critics usually simply do not get, as they present fatuous arguments about pricing). Another common point is the notion that it is the 'research' guys who do all the heavy lifting, and the companies get a free ride - in both cases the difference between a well-done research prototype and a real product can be quite great.
Glenn Reynolds paid a small but correct tribute recently to Pfizer (whose problems I have described in a previous post), and TigerHawk follows up.
At the moment the only drug I subscribe to is Aspirin, but that is of course Big Pharma of its 19th-century time.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:05 AM