Adverts generate profit. Profit funds research into improved drugs  We should not attack drugs companies for making profits from their products, nor for encouraging patients to use them. Each new drug costs an average of $500m to produce and very small percentage of the drugs that are researched ever make it to the market. [1] The more profitable the industry, the more new drugs it can afford to research and develop and thus the more patients who can receive appropriate treatment. Many of the complex cures being developed for diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDs, SARS and Avian Flu will take decades to research. In the meantime, drug companies require funding streams from other drugs to continue research.  Drugs have become increasingly expensive and advertisement helps to cover those costs. From 1980 and 2004, from about $6 billion (in 2005 dollars) to $39 billion. There has been a real growth rate of about 8 percent a year, on average.  By comparison, drug firms’ gross margins—sales revenue minus costs and income taxes—have been increasing more slowly, by about 4 percent annually. [2]  So, with more personalized medicine and greater costs in drug development, the industry needs a greater source of revenue in order to research therapeutics further. Advertising would provide this revenue.  [1] Hollis A., Me-too drugs: is there a problem ?, University of Calgary, published December 2004,  , accessed 08/08/2011  [2] Congres of United States, Research and Development in the Pharmaceutical Industry, October 2006,  , accessed 08/01/2011