Reply #10: You know what I never hear being talked about when stories like this come out? [View All]

[Duer 157099]

The extreme cost of doing research, which is what causes these drug prices to be so high in the first place.

In the days of the gold rush, the ones making the most consistent high profits were those who sold supplies to the miners (like Levi Straus).

Nowadays, the equivalent are the vendors who sell supplies to researchers. And most of it is just plastic ware, centrifuge tubes, tissue culture plasticware, things like that, but the cost is astronomical and I think way out of line. Why? Because people doing research don't really have time to comparison shop and they tend to use the things they have always used, no matter the cost, especially if they work in a pharmaceutical company where the budget isn't an issue.

It is almost on par with the stories you hear about governmental contractors who charge hundreds of dollars for toilet paper or whatever. Research suppliers somehow also get away with charging excessive prices for really mundane things, sometimes as trivial as pens and batteries, things you could get at Costco, but for convenience, researchers just order them from the same place they get their specialized stuff.

It's just really bizarre.