Drug Markups and the Role of Supplements

The gigantic drug industry captitalizes on the consumer's search for security from symptoms. The profit margin is partially due to low-cost ingredients being marked up on a scale that other industry would envy. Sharon Davis and Mary Palmer, budget analysts for the United States Department of Commerce did an independent study on the costs of the active ingredients in commercial drugs in America relative to the consumer price. They published articles on their findings in several issues of Life Extension magazine. The chemical synthesizers that supply active ingredients in drugs approved by the FDA are generally obtained in other countries. The markup is most often in the thousands and tens of thousands of percentage points, however some reach even more profitable levels.

A one milligram dose of Xanax is particularly obese in the profit bubble profile: 100 tablets cost $136.79 when purchased by the public; the cost of the ingredients for those tablets is $.024, making the markup 569,958 percent. A half a million percent markup can swing a corporation's balance sheet into the ionosphere in no time, and would prove to be an intoxicating and habit-forming source of money and power to the recipients.

Another widely-used drug in North America that's a veritable gravy train is Fluoxetine, the antidepressant sold as Prozac. One hundred tablets sells for $247.47 while the cost of the active ingredient is $.11 for a markup of 224,973 percent. Another example is Claritin - the cost of 100 tablets is $215.17 where the active ingredient cost is $.71, posting a 30,306 percent markup. Celebrex reaps 21,712 percent and Prilosec sports a tidy 69,417 percent markup ratio.

A portion of the markup rewards the initial long-term investment in discovery and development and is justified but the status of pharmaceutical companies indicates the profit margins are higher than other industries: there are now over two hundred pharmaceutical corporations, and together they are more profitable than any other industry. Brand medications are dealing with products that are based on research and development, patents, brand names, and marketing so the cost from beginning to end to launch a new medication is estimated at over two billion dollars. This cost includes the many other failed drug discovery and development attempts since only a fraction of researched chemicals make it to the market. The consumer is paying to offset all the development, manufacturing, marketing, and delivery while the pharmaceutical firm can capitalize on its patent for seventeen years until the drug can be legally sold in generic form.

Competition from generic drug makers has been around for decades and there has been the new competition, ordering generic drugs online to lower prices. In addition public awareness is slowly recognizing that symptoms have root causes that can be balanced through healthier and more organic means such as vitamin and mineral supplements. A person suffering from insomnia doesn't necessarily need to be sedated with sleeping pills if the root problem is simply leg cramps or restless leg syndrome. Being drowsy even hours after getting up is usually the effect of sleeping pills. If the sufferer does some research he'll be able to find a treatment that's non-pharmaceutical, something natural that addresses the condition. One remedy is a supplement that goes by the trade name of "All Calm", a form of Magnesium Citrate which has helped RLS and leg cramp victims finally get a good night's sleep. There are numerous chemicals on the market for RLS, usually derivatives spun off from other symptom-treating diseases, but the person is better off to start with a supplement that has no side-effects.

Some commercial drugs seem to be created through reverse engineering of a catchy trade name. It seems as if some marketing campaigns get underway before the drug can be purported to address a particular symptom. Remember the annoying and mystifying commercials about something you just "apply directly to the forehead!" The ad never actually said what this product would do to your forehead - is it for pimples or does it cure headaches? Imagine a meeting where names like "Phastavir" or "Regulax" are tossed around as possible new products. It costs less to re-formulate an existing chemical entity than to discover a new one. It could be sold for stress relief or anxiety attacks if a certain efficacy of that nature can be proved in clinical trials, which are slanted in favor of the companies that sponsor the trials. One way to get better results is to use young test subjects who have fewer side-effects, even if the drug is aimed at senior-aged patients.

Get a catchy name and do an advertising blitz on the new brand name and the public will buy it because it appeals to the culture of consumerism. Because obscene profits are involved the message is sent that it's necessary to have some drugs to get through the day, although conditions like depression are rooted in social problems and there's no way to package and sell counseling in a pill. Curing society's ills and curing disease aren't part of the pharmaceutical industry mandate except in the rare cases where one of the drugs actually does cure the disease permanently. Treating symptoms is the bread and butter of pharmaceuticals, not wiping out disease. Repeat customers of non-essential drugs are the most valuable because they are convinced that they need to shop for pills that will take away every bit of boredom, suspicion of allergy, every little ache and pain - so convenience and mental security is a motivator.

We've been programmed by advertising to believe that drugs cure illness, not vitamins. The intense effort at political lobbying extended by the pharmaceutical giants and the fact that they finance and control the research enables them to propagate this belief with the public and the medical community. Many medical institutions are on the gravy train with sponsorships and support from the drug czars. The common sense road of nutrition therapy and vitamin supplements is discredited and very much the electric car of the medical world…held back in favor of the gas-guzzler.

To quote Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine: the pharmaceutical industry she says is "primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit. Big pharma is taking us for a ride: the combined profits from the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 were more than the other 490 corporations put together."

The author Pat Boardman is a writer experienced in editing textbooks for a stress specialist. He began treating chronic leg cramps with a remedy, All Calm that he discovered online and proved to give effective relief. The treatment carries a money-back guarantee and is safe to use.