Which is a load of crock. Of the 10 biggest companies in the world in terms of revenue in 2006/7 (latest numbers I could find), 7 are European. Of those you can clearly see (with the exception of Bayer) that the US companies are not "mega spending" on R&D when compared to the non US companies. While the biggest spender in 2006 was an American company the nr. 2, a European was not far behind and the rest of the top 5 was dominated by European companies.
Pharmaceutical industry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
yes it is wikipedia, however finding newer info is pretty damn hard since the industry protects it self behind pay sites and members only sites.
On top of that, big US pharma spent much more on advertising than on R&D
PLoS Medicine: The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States
In fact almost double. So if anything, the thing that is driving up US prices is advertising..
So basically it is just another excuse for an overpriced healthcare industry that is bleeding the US dry for every cent it can before the politicians figure out that they are getting taken from behind over and over again.
Got lucky and found the article I was orignally referencing:
Poor U.S. Scores in Health Care Don’t Measure Nobels and Innovation - New York Times
The six most important medical innovations of the last 25 years, according to a 2001 poll of physicians, were magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography (CT scan); ACE inhibitors, used in the treatment of hypertension and congestive heart failure; balloon angioplasty; statins to lower cholesterol levels; mammography; and coronary artery bypass grafts. Balloon angioplasty came from Europe, four innovations on the list were developed in American hospitals or by American companies (although statins were based on earlier Japanese research), and mammography was first developed in Germany and then improved in the United States. Even when the initial research is done overseas, the American system leads in converting new ideas into workable commercial technologies.
In real terms, spending on American biomedical research has doubled since 1994.
By 2003, spending was up to $94.3 billion (there is no comparable number for Europe), with 57 percent of that coming from private industry.
The National Institutes of Health’s current annual research budget is $28 billion, All European Union governments, in contrast, spent $3.7 billion in 2000, and since that time, Europe has not narrowed the research and development gap.
America spends more on research and development over all and on drugs in particular, even though the United States has a smaller population than the core European Union countries.
From 1989 to 2002, four times as much money was invested in private biotechnology companies in America than in Europe.
Development?” (ostina.org/downloads/pdfs/bridgesvol7_BoehmArticle.pdf) Dr. Boehm argues that the research environment in the
United States, compared with Europe, is wealthier, more competitive, more meritocratic and more tolerant of waste and chaos. He argues that these features lead to more medical discoveries.
About 400,000 European researchers are living in the United States, usually for superior financial compensation and research facilities.
This innovation-rich environment stems from the money spent on American health care and also from the richer and more competitive American universities. The American government could use its size, or use the law, to bargain down health care prices, as many European governments have done. In the short run, this would save money but in the longer run it would cost lives.