Posted by Rich (152.163.205.29) on December 16, 1999 at 21:51:53:
In Reply to: a workaround posted by Ron Dorfman on December 16, 1999 at 14:19:43:
I work for a manufacture of medical equipment and their is a point here that needs to be made. The cost of research and development of new medical devices and drugs are enormus and the time it taked to get FDA approval is very long with no real income producing results until the drug is released. Then their is the period of time that your patent is effective. A company must recover all of its R&D cost within the patent protected period. Once the patent is removed the company must reduce its profit margin to the competeters level. This coupled with the fact that their is a very limited market for Imitrex means that R&D cost is spread out over a very small audience. Its not like developing a new can of soup where there will be millions sold. We have only ourselves and the American legal system to blame for the difference in cost between Mexico and Canadian drugs and our own. If the American people wern't so eager to sue, the cost of a lot of things, especially drugs wound be a lot less. No, I do not work for Galaxo, but I very much appreciate thir R&D.