{"id":1054,"date":"2006-07-27T06:52:51","date_gmt":"2006-07-27T11:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/and-they-said-id-never-amount-to-anything\/"},"modified":"2006-07-27T06:52:51","modified_gmt":"2006-07-27T11:52:51","slug":"and-they-said-id-never-amount-to-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/and-they-said-id-never-amount-to-anything","title":{"rendered":"And they said I’d never amount to anything"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m interviewing a pair of companies this morning for an article in my September issue. Their combined 2005 revenues were $126 billion.<\/p>\n

One’s a major drug company, the other a major healthcare distributor. Margins are a funny thing: the drug company had around $52 billion in sales, with a cost-of-goods of $8.5 billion, while the distributor had $74 billion in sales, with a cost-of-goods of $70 billion. On the other hand, the drug company’s selling, general, and administrative costs were $17 billion while the distributor’s SGA costs were $2.8 billion.<\/p>\n

Reminds me of those differences in R&D costs from a few posts back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m interviewing a pair of companies this morning for an article in my September issue. Their combined 2005 revenues were $126 billion. One’s a major drug company, the other a major healthcare distributor. Margins are a funny thing: the drug company had around $52 billion in sales, with a cost-of-goods of $8.5 billion, while the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “And they said I’d never amount to anything”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-pharmaceuticals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-h0","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":512,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/medicare-frauds","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":0},"title":"Medicare Frauds","author":"Gil","date":"March 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"What's $320 billion among friends?(Editorial from the March issue of my magazine) Last March and April in this space I wrote about the scandal(s) behind the passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill. At the time, I was irate over the fact that the White House hid $134 billion in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1019,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pfed","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":1},"title":"Pf***ed","author":"Gil","date":"July 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry for the lack of posts, readers! I'm really busy on the home-stretch of that Top Companies special issue. Gotta finish the final profile today, so's I can head to the shore tomorrow without worrying about it. I decided to save the biggest one for last: Pfizer. As you may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1539,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/utilitarianism","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":2},"title":"Utilitarianism","author":"Gil","date":"June 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Every summer, when we get rolling on the annual Top 20 Pharma \/ Top 10 Biopharma report, my trusty associate editor compiles pipeline information for the past year. While I suss out sales figures and try to parse the arcana of accounting, she puts together lists of new drugs that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":143,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/steal-big-steal-bigger","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":3},"title":"Steal Big, Steal Bigger?","author":"Gil","date":"February 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"(Here's the From the Editor page of my magazine this month) A recent New York Times article, \"Fraud Kicks in Months Ahead of Medicare Drug Discount Card,\" discussed the practice of con artists going door-to-door selling 'Medicare-approved' drug discount cards, despite the fact that the drug discount program has yet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2197,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/license-to-ill","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":4},"title":"License to Ill","author":"Gil","date":"August 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Both the Giants and the Jets are planning to sell \"Personal Seat Licenses\" (PSLs) to gouge season ticket holders pay for construction of their new shared stadium. This morning's Newark Star-Ledger has an article on the subject, and it makes one of the most bone-headed statements I've read about PSLs.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3689,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/too-big-to-fail","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":5},"title":"Too Big To Fail?","author":"Gil","date":"March 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's my From the Editor column from the March issue of my magazine. Enjoy: Too Big To Fail? The pharmaceutical industry is experiencing a deepening productivity crisis. The industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preferred escape mechanism from this predicament has been to increase investment in current business activities \u00e2\u20ac\u201d primarily R&D and sales \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}