

Pharmaceutical R&D - yarapavan
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/08/pharmaceutical-rd.html

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yarapavan
From the post:

 _This is obviously ludicrous--so why would Dr. Avorn say it about an R &D
department? Like your brain, the R&D department is part of a complex system
that does a lot of important stuff. You can argue that the R&D department is
the most important part of a company, not least because it couldn't survive
long without it. I think the same thing about my brain--but I'd still be just
as dead without my liver. You certainly can't prove anything about my
effectiveness as a journalist by pointing out that [my brain] weighs less than
my bones. So how big should a "brain" be? Hard to say. But let's look at some
companies that are generally recognized as pretty innovative, and their R&D as
a percentage of revenue:_

Apple: three cents out of every dollar

Google: ten cents out of every dollar

Intel: fifteen cents out of every dollar

Genzyme: sixteen cents of every dollar

US Government: three cents out of every dollar

