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Many [right-wingers] (and neoliberals) love to argue that the marketplace is the best judge of winners and losers. Competition is the key to innovation, they argue. But in the consumer market, innovation isn’t always about providing a better product. Just as often, “innovation” means exploiting a leverageable point of difference or streamlining the manufacturing process in pursuit of better profit margins.
Was Coke Zero an innovation over Diet Coke? Was Nexium an innovation over Prilosec? Certainly, marketing said “yes,” but the research, at least in the case of the pharmaceuticals, stated otherwise:
It’s expensive to produce an innovative drug. On average, the bill runs to more than $400 million. So drug companies often take a less costly route to create a new product. They chemically rejigger an oldie but goodie, craft a new name, mount a massive advertising campaign and sell the retread as the latest innovative breakthrough.
This strategy has shown great success for turning profits. Nexium, a “me-too” drug for stomach acid, has earned $3.9 billion for its maker, AstraZeneca, since it went on the market in 2001. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classified three-fourths of the 119 drugs it approved last year as similar to existing ones in chemical makeup or therapeutic value…
The study goes on to point out that the money spent on developing and marketing a “me too” drug is money not spent researching truly new treatments.
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Occupy Innovation: Neither the Military Nor the Market Does
Yet another example, LA Liberty, of why we need government funding of scientific research.
(via ryking)
