This is the trend: FDA approves your drug, stock sales go up and up, shareholders are happy, company is happy. Few thousand cardiologists stop prescribing your drug because a recent study shows it doesn’t help cholesterol as expected, and severe side effects exist, stock prices go down, company is not happy.
So what does the company do? They invest millions (maybe more) in advertising – trying to convince the pharmacists, doctors, and yes, you – the patient, that the drug is safe.
Now, it is possible the study is wrong – and that their efforts are best focused on advertising, but what if the study is right? Wouldn’t you want to invest those millions in making the drug better, patient studies, etc?
Sadly – when $5,000,000,000 are on the line – health care decisions aren’t that easy for large companies to make.