Self-study
A director of the Rexx Pharmaceutical Company argued that Conclusion the development costs for new vaccines that the health department has requested should be subsidized by the government, since Support the marketing of vaccines promised to be less profitable than the marketing of any other pharmaceutical product. ██ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ███ ████████ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ █████ █████ ████ ███████ ██ ████████████ ██ █ ███████ ████ █████ ███████ █████████ ████ ██████ ████████ ███ ███████ █████████ ███ ████████████ ████ █████ ██ ████ ████████
Summarize Argument
The director argues that development costs for the new government-requested vaccine should be subsidized. Why? Because vaccines are less likely to be profitable than other pharmaceutical products. This is because vaccines only need to be administered once, and thus sell less than products administered many times.
Notable Assumptions
The director assumes that if the government requests a product, that product should be subsidized to account for the missed profit the company would make from a more marketable product. The director also assumes that the one-time nature of the vaccine wouldn’t be mitigated by its price or some factor increasing sales.
2.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ████████ ███ ███ █████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ██ █████████
a
Vaccines are administered ██ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ █████ ██████████████ █████████
If the vaccines are administered more widely than most drugs, then those sales would mitigate the fact vaccines are only administered once per patient. This suggests the vaccine will be profitable, weakening the director’s argument.
b
Many of the ████████ ████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ██ ████████████ ███████ ██ ██████████
In other words, if we let people get sick instead of vaccinating them, the pharmaceutical company could sell more medication. This makes the impact of vaccines on profits even more direct, which strengthens the argument.
c
Pharmaceutical companies occasionally ██████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████ ███ █████████
The argument is specifically about the profitability of vaccines versus other medications, so the existence of a third product category isn't relevant.
d
Pharmaceutical companies other ████ ███ ████ ██████████████ ███████ ███████ █████████
Presumably those other companies' directors would make the same argument as the Rexx director. This doesn't give us any reason to doubt the argument; it's just irrelevant.
e
The cost of █████████████ █ ███████ ██ ██████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ███████ ████ ████████████ ████ ████████
The manufacturing company still pays the production and marketing costs, which are the costs the director thinks should be subsidized. This doesn’t give us any reason to think otherwise, meaning it doesn't weaken.