You just said it - driven by capitalism - but what you seem to forget is that we are dealing with human lives when we deal with "ethical" pharmaceuticals - an oxymoron if there ever was one. We are dealing with MD's on these companies payrolls that work supposedly for NIH, FDA, etc. We are dealing with shoddy clinical studies with MD's on these companies payrolls - come with me into one of these companies and see clinical studies done backward - or perhaps not really done at all - just someone's palm greased. So when the old fox in charge of the henhouse - the FDA approves the whatever piece of killer junk the ABC pharmaceutical company wants to kill you with - what better way than to advertise it to Joe Average who watches FOX TV and can't even spell his/her name. Joe will then go running to his MD for an Rx of whatever piece of crud the company is pushing - and is the MD is lucky enough - the company may even have a contest going that month and if he pushes one more script of crud to poor Joe - he will win that trip to Pago Pago. Of course you realize the advertising budgets of the companies far exceed the R&D budgets which they scream is what makes their crud cost so much!

Yep - Capitalism at it's best...........