Mark Eby said:

"In short the prices seem way high to me, but there are reasons for it. I think part of the problem is demand for marginal improvements in health care at a very high cost. If the industry were focused on reducing costs rather than making new drugs prices might actually start to drop."

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I'm certainly no biochemist but it seems to me the pharmeceutical industry is on the verge of a major paradigm shift (sorry about the cliche) with biotechnology. The ability to genetically reprogram viruses and bacteria or attack human disease at the genetic level will be even more revolutionary than the invention of the steam engine. I understand this is a very difficult problem and billions of dollars needs to be spent before it is cracked. Now I'm not so naive as to believe that most of the money going into the pharmeceutical industry is being spent on R&D. I'm sure a good percentage of it is being spent on law suits, marketing and executive salaries. However I view that as heat and noise. If tens of billions are going to R&D then for sure at least billions will be skimmed off for less noble purposes.

As an aside, this new technology of reducing biology to computer coding at the DNA level is both fascinating and frightening. Most previous technicial innovation was acquired through a long build up of knowledge from a very basic level. However the human genome represents 3.5 billion years of evolution. For purposes of argument assume that natural selection is a million times slower than clever people working out solutions from scratch. The human genome would take clever people 3500 years to devise from first principles. Humanity will acquire most of that knowledge within 2 decades. Watson and Crick described the structure of DNA in
1953. We will have acquired 3500 years worth of genetic knowledge in less than a century. This is scary!

Gary