This trope is always pulled out but it’s wrong. The analysis looked at S&GA which represented far more than marketing.
Second, marketing produces a positive ROI (or why else do it). So you spend $10M on marketing and get more than $10M back.
Third, you can’t sell a drug without some type of marketing. I know HN is full of engineers who build products that sell themselves, but that’s BS. Doctors often have misconceptions or lack information about new drugs and getting someone in front of them to educate them is necessary.
Positive ROI relating to prescribing people useless and often harmful drugs. Just look at prescriptions that just happen to fall off after drugs go generic.
People are also buying insurance which is priced based on the assumption people will get useless prescriptions. So, this advertising really adds a lot more costs without nessisarily any net benefits.
> Marketing is a larger cost than Reseach for major drug companies.
People on HN love to point this out, as if it somehow implies that companies are wasting money.
Marketing is how companies secure their revenues from the drugs that do make it to market. Without marketing, they'd have even less money to spend on R&D.
(And yes, marketing takes place in countries besides the US. Marketing is more than just consumer advertising).
