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Donald Rumsfeld on Health Care
Secretary of Defense (Pres. Bush Cabinet)
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Big Pharma's R&D investment is underappreciated
One of the more underappreciated aspects of the pharmaceutical industry is the time and investment put into research and development. Time and again the pharmaceutical industry has been singled out as a villain in corporate
America and as the main culprit in escalating health-care costs. In fact, pharmaceutical and drug costs are less than 12% of the total of health-care costs.
Successful pharmaceutical companies have to invest; that is to say they have to put at risk hundreds of millions of the their investors' dollars, in an effort to discover new therapies to save lives, extend lives, improve the quality of lives,
and yes, also to try to make a fair return for their investors while doing so. More often than not, many years of trial and error result in dead ends. But breakthrough discoveris do occur.
Source: Known and Unknown, by Donald Rumsfeld, p.252
, Feb 8, 2011
Page last updated: Mar 13, 2021