High Drug Prices Hurt Everyone

Abstract

Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Daraprim 5,500%, illustrating how the absence of competition in the sale of low-volume, low-price drugs can lead to price gouging. For patented medicines, society allows supracompetitive pricing to incentivize innovation. However, Gilead's decision to sell Sovaldi for $84,000 per course of treatment raised the question whether society must accept any price set by the patent holder. Unfortunately, these incidents illustrate a broader trend in which pharmaceutical prices are greater in the United States than abroad, placing the United States at the top in per capita expenditures on pharmaceuticals. The Canadian and Indian approaches to balancing patient access to medicines with other policy objectives, including stimulating investment in R&D, point to a multifaceted solution. Proposed solutions include prevention, increasing pharmaceutical coverage, and increasing transparency. Strategic policy requires access to information regarding R&D costs, private listing agreements (prices charged to different customers), and patient outcomes.

Prospects and Challenges of Precision Medicine in Lower- and Middle-Income Countries: A Brief Overview

“…The following year in 1978 the Alma-Ata assertion during the International Conference on Primary Health Care (PHC) endorses that health is an ultimate human right and the fulfillment of the highest conceivable level of health is the most imperative universal social intent 149 . After all these 42 years of struggles of EM and PHC, even in rich countries, marginalized communities and the elderly population are suffering because of the high cost of medicines 147,150,151 . Additionally, many countries around the planet, especially of LMICs, suffer from poor access to EM and PHC [152][153][154][155][156][157] .…”

The influence of the media on the formation of cognitive dissonance in the doctor-to-patient interaction

“…В таких случаях место диссонанса в общественном сознании занимает разочарование, дополняемое недоверием к государственной (и не только) системе здравоохранения в целом, например изза высокой стоимости препаратов, необходимых в ряде случаев [24], или специфики заболеваний [25], или по причине влияния на индивидуальное мнение информации из интернета. Данные опасения вполне объяснимы масштабными, не только внутригосударственными, но и глобальными экономическими процессами, в которых смешиваются медицинская помощь, извлечение выгоды и получение прибыли.…”

Rectal Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs for Post–Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography Pancreatitis Prophylaxis: A Case Study in a Price-Escalation Era

“…H igh drug prices have become a staple of the US health care experience; the United States spends more per capita on pharmaceuticals than any other nation. 1 US citizens have noticed this trend, with 79% believing that drug prices are currently unreasonable and 30% choosing to avoid taking prescription medications because of high prices. 2 Although the costs of developing new drugs are profound, there has been a disturbing trend of a marked price escalation of old drugs without a clear business justification.…”

“…This trend of severe price hikes for old drugs is especially prominent with drugs that rely on a single domestic manufacturer. 1,3 The laundry list of drugs that have experienced these price hikes is long and diverse. Isoproterenol and nitroprusside were old cardiac drugs that, after being acquired by Valeant, had price hikes of 3,100% and 6,700%, respectively.…”

“…Pyrimethamine, a drug used for toxoplasmosis and malaria prophylaxis, priced at $13.50 per pill in 2015, soared by 5,500% to $750 in 2015 after the drug rights were acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals. 1,3 Drugs like pyrimethamine have a small market size and a relatively low price, which discourages opposing manufacturers from producing competing generic versions and leaves patients at the mercy of single manufacturers, who can escalate prices as high as they believe the market will bear.…”