Last week, Medical News Today posted an article confirming what many of us had already known - drug companies spend a lot more marketing their product than they do researching and developing it - nearly twice as much.

I wrote a few months ago that pharmaceutical companies are the hardest brands to market to the masses. Their products cause awful unwanted side-effects, and sometimes, they don’t even work. Of course, it costs a lot of money to make people think the benefits outweigh the negatives - even if those include increased gambling urges.

These companies do deserve to make money for creating a product that can be used to improve the quality of life - but it’s hard to justify two thirds of your budget going to ads, pr and campaigns when half your drugs fail FDA approval or worse, kills a lot of people before being taken off the market.

I’m a pro-business guy. I like it when companies succeed the right way. I wonder if pharmaceutical companies will ever do it the right way.

Oh, and F-off Robert Jarvik.

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Filed under: Advertising, Branding, Marketing Trends, Personal Opinions