Mostly not marketing (still large), but the R&D costs and clinical trial costs. The latter are in hundreds of millions to billions range for the entire journey from a promising discovery to an FDA-approved medicine.
replyEvery time Ive looked into it marketing is more than half of the costs of US pharma companies - and I would suspect even more as don't know if there has much work to unmask even more of that spending via channels that can occur in ways not obviously marked as marketing or at least are really not core to research and manufacturing.
replye.g. is all the "discount coupon" pharmacy rigamarole considered marketing or administration.
This is not correct. Here's Pfizer's 2025 annual report [1]. Total expenses for the year were $55.1 billion. Advertising expenses were $2.7 billion of that, or just under 5%. R&D expenses were $12.1 billion, or just under 22%. They do have a lot of SG&A, but the large majority of that is not going to marketing.
reply[1] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000078003/908eb6a...
Advertising is only a subset of marketing. From that doc, look at operating costs: SGA was ~$11B and R&D ~$12B - basically 50/50. Pfizer is very international, so is pretty difficult to break out US operating costs and what marketing vs R&D is for just the US. But one can also assume US marketing is higher than any other nation as direct-to-consumer advertising is primarily only allowed in the US.
replyWhy not just research it outside of the US if the problem is the FDA cost
replyYou still need the same FDA approval and process to sell it in the US
replyCost cut them. You think the administration won't take a bribe at that point?
replyBecause the problem isn't the FDA cost
replyThe problem is proving your drugs work
It's very hard and expensive to do
Right, but the idea that Americans specifically should pay higher prices is beyond propaganda. It's Stockholm Syndrome-level delusion. Big Pharm has thrived for generations on our research universities (for the time being anyway) and had a front row seat to expanding foreign markets under US-led globalization. In return, we get the world's most expensive healthcare system and the privilege of paying too much for meds because our leaders won't cut a deal. All they have to lose is the "hundreds of millions to billions range" in annual lobbying expenditures by Big Pharma.
replyIn a sane world - or literally any other country - that $300-$500 million in annual lobbying would be the literal difference that makes medicine accessible for those who need it. Instead, it goes to expensive lunches.
Agreed. I mean, where did the COVID mRNA vaccine come from? Which company makes the GLP-1 inhibitors like Ozempic and Mounjaro? Are these American companies?
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