An email has been making the rounds for some time regarding the obscene profits enjoyed by drug companies. While it may be old news, innumerable credulous souls, like my sister, keep forwarding it as a revelation of The Truth, so it is useful to go over the economics raised in the email one more time.The email casts the authors as intrepid investigators in the mold of Mike Wallace:Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet ... In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America. There follows a list of 16 drugs. For example, we are told that 100 tabs of Prozac retail for $247.47, while the cost of the raw ingredients is only 11 cents, a markup of 224,973%! Gasp! Where's my pitchfork, Ma?I responded...(Read Full Post)