International Prescription Drug Price Comparisons: Estimates Using 2022 Data

Abstract

The current report, like the prior version, compares prices for different categories of drug products, including brand-name originator drugs, unbranded generic drugs, biologics, and nonbiologic drugs. This report adds new analyses on biosimilar price comparisons and on changes in price comparison findings over time. This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation under Contract No. HHSP23320095649WC-TO38, and the update was funded under Contract No. HHSP233201500038I and carried out within the Payment, Cost, and Coverage Program in RAND Health Care.RAND Health Care, a division of the RAND Corporation, promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries. We do this by providing health care decisionmakers, practitioners, and consumers with actionable, rigorous, objective evidence to support their most complex decisions. For more information, see www.rand.org/health-care, or contact

Timely, Cheap, or Risk-Free? The Effect of Regulation on the Price and Availability of New Drugs

“…Furthermore, the high cost of some of the active principles makes them unaffordable for most patients to the point that their cost is usually financed either by private insurance or by the public healthcare system. Even in the USA, where private insurance and copayment are the predominant financing methods, prices for new drugs have become an extremely important issue on the political agenda [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] because they may be responsible for the increase in healthcare bills. In Europe, where drug expenditure is predominantly financed through a public healthcare system, the need to curb expenditure has required stringent regulation, whose effect on the market has been rather controversial [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ].…”