[Mase]

Most primary research is conducted in our universities, that is true. Without taxpayer funding of this important part of the equation, primary research would stop even though the drug companies do support this where it is in their interest to do so. However, the drug companies do the heavy lifting when it comes to commercializing products. All the primary research in the world is meaningless until someone utilizes it to help people, and guides it through the testing and approval processes. That's the hard part.

The $30 billion or so of taxpayer money spent supporting this research annually is a drop in the bucket compared to the vast sums of money wasted on entitlements, fraud and other giveaways. That's not to say that the NIH and NSF don't waste huge sums of money supporting junk science. They do. That waste notwithstanding, the primary research supported by our tax dollars is provides one of the better returns on the money the government confiscates from its citizens. JMHO of course.

Anyone who has suffered from disease, or has been affected by someone else who has, should want the drug companies to be highly profitable.I want a future in which more lifesaving drugs are discovered and made available to us and our progeny, not fewer lifesaving drugs. Profit drives innovation. The drug industry spends more on research and development, as a percentage of sales revenue, than just about every other industry in the US. Nine out of every ten new drugs are discovered in the US. That's because the drug companies can still make a profit here.

[dfwgator]

Profit drives innovation.

But isn't it true, that it's more profitable to create a drug that a user must take for the rest of their life, rather than actually developing a cure, that only requires a one-time payment?