Posted by Althea8869 on February 16, 2004, at 11:22:45
In reply to Re: Take two and call me in the morning..., posted by leo33 on February 15, 2004, at 22:57:06
Leo33 - unfortunately your pretty much right on the money about getting the short end either way. But, and I believe this without question, maintaining the R&D pipeline and optimizing the time to market, while maintaining greater vigiliance in the trials process and further separation of the manufacturer from any of the product literature is what needs to happen. "Pure" biotech companies spend FAR more money on R&D than on S/M, this is not as true in commodotized pharmaceuticals - but you also have to adjust data for the fact that sales staff will usually draw a far higher salary than your scientists. As an analyst one of the first ratios you look at is R&D spending to net adjusted sales when analyzing 'specialty' firms. In some firms that can go up to 80% or more - because they live and die by the new product and because of the complexities of developing/manufacturing that product- commodity manufacturers are the polar opposite - they couldnt care less about the new product, they are only interested in finding better/cheaper ways to produce drugs that already exist. They piggy back, causing much lower product margins, but stable sales. I've worked as a polymer chemist and now, though out of work, as an analyst. The other thing that would be immensely helpful to our cause is to have the government better subsidize the smaller 'heavy' private r&d firms - their contributions can be immense, but all too often they fold because they cant pay the loan that they took to pay the loan(s) they took to finance their development.
Bottom line, its the research folk we should be finding some way to help - not the lawyers.
And no, my world is not a perfect one, in the last year I lost my job, my fiance ended our engagement and my brother died - and most days im living in a fog so dark that I cant see to the end of my nose.Our salvation lies in the labs and in the classrooms, not in a courtroom.
poster:Althea8869
thread:53462
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040215/msgs/314049.html