Quote:
Originally Posted by JeremyR
The trouble is, there is a huge difference in the work involved in writing a novel, which might take on person 3 months, as opposed to developing new medicines, which takes hundreds of people years.
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The analogy I would make is that university biomedical researchers are like authors, and pharmaceutical companies are like publishers. India is like someone on this board who hardly ever reads a pirated book, but might in a rare special situation.
As for it taking hundreds of person-years to get US and EU governmental approvals, that's true. But how much value is there, to India, in that approval process? One can argue the point. Tests mandated in the West are not geared to how the drug may be used in India. Also, Western drug companies spend
more more on marketing than R&D. They'll tell you that a lot of the marketing is for drug reps to help the docs use their products more effectively. Regardless of whether you buy this, I don't think many of those drug reps are visiting India.