In five pages this paper examines how to protect profits while controlling rising costs in the pharmaceutical industry. There are 3 sources cited in the bibliography.
Name of Research Paper File: D0_MTphaman.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
one hand, the pubic - especially in the United States, is faced with ever increasing costs that insurance companies are either unwilling or unable to cover. One recent example of
this involves the prescription drug Claritin, a non-drowsy antihistamine that will soon be available over-the-counter. Because of this, many insurance companies are refusing to cover rival allergy prescription drugs such
as Zyrtec and Allegra. But when pharma manufacturers are confronted with public and government outcry over high prices, these companies point
out that the cost of bringing new drugs to market is high because of the R & D and testing necessary before Food and Drug (FDA) approval.
Both sides have a point. Drugs are expensive to produce and costly to buy. But pharmaceutical companies can, as well see in this paper, reduce
the ever-escalating cost of drug production and can, as a result, pass those savings to consumers. One way in which costs can
be reduced is by changing the way in which research is performed. Drug research studies are typically divided into four phases (Hirsch, 2002). Phase IV studies, which determine if a
drug can work under "ideal" conditions rather than a real-world environment, tend to take place in controlled artificial environments with a small group of patients that meets specific criteria (Hirsch,
2002). The problem with these Phase IV studies, however, is that they dont always offer insight on how the drugs will work in real world situation (Hirsch, 2002). As a
result, once a drug is released to market, safety issues could evolve, as could benefits or side effects occurring with long-term use (Hirsch, 2002). This could lead to product re-labeling