Ah those silly irrational business people who think their job is making a
profit instead of doing good deeds.


Martin Baxter wrote:
Yup, those same irrational hypocritical folks who proffer ad campaigns
extolling the virtues of their companies and what a standup job they are
doing for mankind. A little honesty would go a long way, "We are not
here to find a cure for _(insert your favourite disease)_, we're to pry
as much money out your and your insurance company's wallets with the
least investment in R&D that we can get away with, the bottom line is
the only line!".

You should see the stockholders reports from some of these companies. It
is invariably brought up that they increased R&D spending, show lovely
full color glossy photos of smiling people in hi-tech labs, etc etc. It
is also almost invariably proposed by a non-board member shareholder to
reduce advertising funding, whereupon it is pointed out that increasing
R&D leads to increased income by some tiny fraction whereas increasing
advertising raises income by a whopping multiplier.

If people weren't so dang gullible, we wouldn't have this problem!

In any event, there are quite a few of the big pharmaceutical companies
are headed by docs instead of MBAs. While that's not a guarantee they're
looking in the right direction, it's better than nothing.

DSK