The companies spend a great deal of money lobbying legislators, and regulatory agencies, principally the FDA. They are also liberal with campaign contributions to influence key politicians, which goes far in explaining the weakness of regulation.
New and profitable diseases
Another way in which big pharmaceutical companies have upped their profits is by encouraging the definition of new diseases, that they can sell drugs to treat. This is often done in the area of psychiatry, where the criteria for diagnoses are usually fuzzy. There are no X-ray images associated with mental conditions such as depression. Examples of such ailments are Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Social Anxiety Disorder [12], Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Binge Eating Disorder [13][14]. Companies often fund patient support groups for new diseases.
There has been an enormous increase over the past two decades in the number of Americans, particularly children, diagnosed as suffering from mental illnesses requiring medication, many of which are of recent vintage [ 15]. E.g., 19% of American boys have been diagnosed as having ADHD, and about two thirds of this group are taking daily doses of drugs such as Ritalin or Adderall [16][17]. Some children under the age of 5 are now being medicated for this ailment.
Research and Development
When defending themselves against charges of gross profiteering at the expense of sick people, the pharmaceutical industry's defense is that they are spending huge amounts of money pushing the boundaries of knowledge to create ever more effective remedies for human ailments. This claim is unfounded. Far more money is spent by the companies on advertising, public relations (PR), and lobbying than on advancing technology [18].
Furthermore, even what they do spend on research is heavily biased toward tweaking the compositions of existing products whose patents are expiring, to make it possible to replace them with siblings that can start with fresh patents. Their PR apparatus then focuses on what are claimed to be some advantages of the "improved" medication--often of questionable value.
Really new advances in medical research generally emanate from work done at university or government laboratories.
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