“Marketing saves consumers money. How is Wal-Mart able to offer customers everyday low prices? Lots of marketing, advertising, and PR spend.”
I am talking about Pharma spending billions to advertise to consumers (as opposed to doctors). How does that save people money? It just drives up the costs at which they sell the drugs so that they can maintain their profit margins.
Not true. If there was very little demand, drugs would have to be much more expensive to recoup the development costs.
Just as in the case of any other product, the stimulation of demand by making people aware of the product (i.e. marketing) is what causes the price of drugs to be as low as they are.
Drug companies do not spend any more on marketing than they have to.
What did Lipitor cost in 1970? What did Plavix cost then? Would you like to guess?