Drug Markup!

[JustWinBaby]

(07-10-2017, 04:44 PM)Au165 Wrote: Not really, they write off failed drugs and use that to their advantage. Merck's net sales last year were 39.5B with 25.2B gross profit. They only spent 10B of that on research...

They also have other SG&A expense....you can't just pick and choose what you think it costs to run a business - actual profits average around 20%, which is high relative to other industries but not terribly higher than many tech and other advanced industries.

If you want to say their prices are 5-10% too high, I won't quibble. Of course, this masks that they make most of their margin in the US, but the ROE and R&D has to come from somewhere.


From 2014, I believe:


From 2012, I think: