this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Average retail net margins (profit margin as share of revenue) are about 3% on a good year. Pfizer's was something like 30% last year. They cleared 100 billion in revenue, meaning 30 billion in straight profit (the 11 billion came out of the other 60-odd percent, because it's not an even 30). In one year, they made almost enough money to buy Twitter. They made enough profit to cover Kansas and Oklahoma's entire 2022 FY budgets. I'm trying to drive home the absolute ridiculous enormity of those profits, because it's not easy to really grasp. The point is, it's not like they don't have a lot of room to breathe.
Some other things to consider:
-Of that 11 billion, how much is government funding and grants? IIRC, Uncle Sam pays for the development of a whole lot of what ends up being private products in healthcare.
-Of their 60-odd billion in costs, how much was advertising? Look, I know you gotta sell to make money, but advertising to patients is annoying, expensive, and (in terms of medical ethics) icky. It's not like they can't save some money there to do R&D.
The point is: Pfizer could easily cut their prices on life-saving medicine and still have tidy profits.
All your questions are good questions that can easily be answered. None of those are valid to justify novel drugs pricing at production costs.