I will say there have been some sleazeball games certain pharm companies have played–isolating one stereoisomer from a racemic mixture (omeprazole = Prilosec, esomeprazole (S-omeprazole) = Nexium; citalopram = Celexa, escitalopram (S-citalopram) = Lexapro) and re-marketing it as a “new” medication complete with a new patent is probably the worst. No more research dollars needed, and billions more of pure profit — nice business strategy. But all in all, everyone’s out to make a buck, and if something makes a patient’s life better, they can afford it, it’s a rational clinical choice, I’m not interested in a solution-looking-for-a-problem kind of retrospection of did the clipboard I had influence me…

…I have leftovers from my free lunch I need to heat up.

It seems that it is pretty trendy for the medical community to be anti-big pharma, and there sure are a slew of medical blogs that rant and complain about every freebie being tossed their way. I think the anger here is misdirected. If we are a society think that medical innovation and manufacturing (both being expensive ventures) are to be paid for through a free-market economy, then we cannot turn around and lash out at the pharma industry when they try to get paid for their work. Corporations promote their products and services in order to make money; it is as simple as that.