The paper examines these articles: "The Link between Gross Profitability and
Pharmaceutical R&D
Spending" by F.M. Scherer; "The Impact of Pipeline Drugs on Drug Spending Growth" by Mullins, Wang, Palumbo and Stuart; and "Improving the
Quality of Health
Care: Who Will Lead?" by Becher and Chassin. The first article explains pharmaceutical firms are not playing fair and square with the data regarding what amount of profits they are actually pouring into legitimate
research and development projects. The author points out, from the second article, that the market can predict quite easily the impact of each new drug because an increase in consumer spending on these drugs can be evaluated by using the three factors of price, utilization, and product shift. The paper relates, in the third article that, today in the health care industry, there are three categories of quality problems, which harm patients, including not getting beneficial health
services, undergoing treatments or procedures from which they will not benefit, and receiving the medical services they really need, but having those services provided badly, which exposes patients to an addition risk of preventable complications. Table of Contents Article 1: The Link between Gross Profitability and Pharmaceutical R&D Spending Introduction Time-Series Analysis, The Gross Margins versus R&D Article 2: The Impact of Pipeline Drugs on Drug Spending Growth Article 3: Improving the Quality Of Health Care: Who Will Lead?