I have my concerns about drug advertising, but pharma company SG&A isn't out of line with say tech company SG&A: For 2014-2015, the ratio between R&D spending and SG&A spending is 0.59 at Pfizer, 0.75 at Google, 0.56 at AstraZeneca, 0.43 at Apple, and 0.58 at Microsoft.