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First In STAT: CSRxP ups its fight with pharma over R&D

The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing is attacking pharma with a new study, first shared with STAT, that finds 10 of the largest drug makers spent on average 22% of their revenues on research and development in 2017 — a figure the group says proves pharma “is investing more boldly in profits, advertising and corporate overhead than in researching new cures.” The study also provides some interesting new data on how much drug makers spend on advertising and marketing, based on proprietary data from the firm GlobalData. STAT has all the details of the study here, but I wanted to highlight a few data points that caught my eye:

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Pfizer banked $21 billion in profits in 2017, nearly triple what it spent on R&D that year. (A Pfizer spokesperson tells me that the company’s reported profits were exceptionally high that year due to President Trump’s tax law.)

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