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Look yourself.

I, personally, would never invest in them simply because I have a problem with OTC papers, and the lack of various security commissions oversight, as well as the purchasing of non-voting shares.

Somewhat wrong. Research and development (R&D) is a relatively small part of the budgets of the big drug companies. Only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It sounds like you read the conservative cliff notes on the issue.

R&D expenditure varies pretty widely. Bayer appears to be one of the worst in R&D to marketing ratio; according to their 2011 Annual Report they spent about 3 billion Euros on R&D and 8.8 billion Euros on "selling" (excludes manufacturing costs). On the other hand, Roche was pretty evenly split between R&D and marketing, with about 8 billion Swiss francs on each. Bristol-Meyers Squibb put about $4.5 billion into marketing and $3.5 billion into R&D.

So yes, drug prices tend to be inflated and a lot of the expense goes to marketing. However, they are also spending a lot on R&D - generally 10% - 25% of income. I won't argue that drugs shouldn't be cheaper - they absolutely should be - but claiming that the pharmaceutical companies don't spend money on research and have no associated costs to recover above the cost of manufacturing the drugs is just plain ignorance. It is certainly worth discussing how drug research and development should be paid for, but India unilaterally deciding to ignore patents without providing any way of funding new research simply isn't sustainable if everyone does it.

Tamiflu appear to work by preventing the spread of the virus. In other words, you still get it but only in a "light" form. It can also be used preventative, but AFAIK that actually appears to require more of the drug than when you take it as recommended (within 36h of first symptoms).

Generic Tamiflu info can be found at the Roche website.

If you get a decent flu you can become quite ill which can have all sorts of unpleasant side effects. Roche mentions this in the leaflet that comes with the product although they state they're not quite sure what is Tamiflu and what is "just" the flu (I guess that keeps the lawyers happy):

During Tamiflu treatment, events like convulsions and delirium (including symptoms such as altered level of consciousness, confusion, abnormal behaviour, delusions, hallucinations, agitation, anxiety, nightmares) have been reported, in a very few cases resulting in accidental injury, in some instances with fatal outcome. These events were reported primarily among children and adolescents and often had an abrupt onset and rapid resolution. The contribution of Tamiflu to those events is unknown. Such neuropsychiatric events have also been reported in patients with influenza who were not taking Tamiflu.

So, like Viagra, a lot of promise but certainly not one to take without medical supervision. Besides, The Real Thing is shockingly expensive (IMHO)..

http://www.roche.com/home.html
http://www.roche.ch/
http://www.roche.de/

They're the same people who manufacture Donald Rumsfeld's
"cure" for super-flu-ous people aka as "Tamiflu".

It's true that pandemics hits us every now and then -- and birds have historically gotten such virus first -- but the virus that causes the bird flu (in the current mutation) does not transmit effectively enough between humans to become a pandemic. One reason might be that the bird flu doesn't make you sneeze, which is an effective means of spreading. Being preventive about a potential problem is very good, but I'd like to know how much Roche (principal marketer of tamiflu) stocks have risen during the media hype. You can see it for yourself at http://www.roche.com/home/investors.htm

I'll throw out a couple responses. Using a few companies and their statements (while probably not 100% accurate these are SEC and FDA liable statements).

• AstraZeneca Produces Nolvadex (used to prevent breast cancer), Seroquel (used to treat schizophrenia), and many others. Rougly spending $2 billion per year on research.
• Bristol Myers Procuces Taxol (used to treat various cancers), Gloucophage (used to treat diabtes), Videx (used to treat HIV) amongst others. Rougly spending $2 billion per year on research.
• Roche (yes the trigger for all this hoopla) Produces several cancer fighting drugs, many to fight heart disease, and many to fight various STDs. Spending roughly $2 billion per year on research.

Besides I'd say that more and better drugs have been found by companies (which you hate) then by non-companies. Your turn. Prove it.

They are pulling in cash hand over fist. Now, why couldn't they negotiate a lower price w/ Brazil so that wouldn't send half their budget to Roche?