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The pharmaceutical industry likes to depict itself as a research-based industry, as the source of innovative drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is their incredible PR and their nerve.

Every night I watch the nightly news. It's funded by the pharmaceutical companies. Virtually every ad is a drug ad. They get their say every night on the nightly news through advertising.

Would-be drug companies must either produce medicines that stand up to federal scrutiny, demonstrate that their data has value to other companies, or go out of business.

The pharmaceutical industry isn't the only place where there's waste and inefficiency and profiteering. That happens in much of the rest of the health care industry.

Pharmaceutical companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new HIV/AIDS treatments not out of altruism but because they can make up those research costs in sales.

Today, nearly 40 percent of a senior's healthcare spending is on pharmaceutical medications.

While I recognize the great value and importance of prescription drugs and strongly support a continued U.S. focus on pharmaceutical research and development, our nation's seniors cannot be asked to subsidize the drug costs of other wealthy industrialized nations any longer.

The United States has an active pharmaceutical industry that has brought huge benefits to the U.S. public. Most Americans, who benefit from these advances, have little understanding of how difficult it is to create an important new medical therapy and make it available to improve public health.

It's crucial to keep in mind that the hundreds of millions of dollars now spent on prescription drug advertisements are ultimately paid for by consumers in the form a higher drug prices.

Getting a traditional pharmaceutical to the market can cost a billion dollars or more. Newer, more tailored and targeted drugs called biologics are even more complex and expensive. Simple economics dictates that companies and venture funds will invest more in products that can generate a sufficient return.