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If you are an actual drug company, I suspect politics and approval processes are at least as expensive to the company, as the actual R&D itself. It is incredibly hard to get into the market with todays legislation.

Drug cartels probably spent a lot of money getting out of legal trouble and dealing with international police

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The approval process (clinical trials) far outweighs the costs of the R&D proper: https://lifescivc.com/2014/11/a-billion-here-a-billion-there...

That article does not include any marketing costs, that for large companies like Pfizer may be around 30-40% of the total cost.

I'd argue that for drug development, clinical trials are part of R&D. After all, their point is to prove that the product works as intended and that it's safe. For any other product that's considered part of R&D.

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