[speakeasy]

(05-23-2014 04:33 PM)SheWantsTheD Wrote:  

Yes. If the government dictates they will only pay x amount, why would anyone spend millions of dollars and decades making a drug when they won't get rich from doing it?

Well here's the fucked up thing. All other OECD nations impose price controls on drugs. We're the only exception. So the result is, Americans are essentially subsidizing the rest of the world that gets them at a discount. The profit they are losing on the rest of the world is made up by charging Americans more for them. It's completely unfair to us. What other industry works like this? That would be like Saudi Arabia having the most expensive gas prices in the world while everyone else gets their oil for cheap. You would think it should be the opposite, Americans get the cheapest drug prices since America produces the most and their citizens would see the most immediate benefit.

http://www.alternet.org/11-major-drug-co...eir-pricey

Quote:

Last year, 11 of the 12 new-to-market drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration were priced above $100,000 per-patient per-year.

And, Americans pay nearly 50% more for comparable prescriptions in the United States than they would in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and a host of other developed nations.

For instance, look at Nexium, a drug commonly prescribed to treat acid reflux.

In Spain, a prescription for Nexium costs, on average, $18. In France and the United Kingdom, Nexium costs, on average, $30 and $32 respectively.

But here in the United States, a prescription for Nexium costs, on average, a whopping $187, six times as much as it costs in France and the UK.

Lipitor is another commonly prescribed medication in the United States, used to treat high cholesterol. In New Zealand, a prescription for Lipitor costs, on average, just six dollars. And in South Africa and Spain, it costs $11 and $13 respectively. But here in the United States, a prescription of Lipitor costs, on average, $100.

These are just two of the commonly used drugs that are bankrupting Americans.

Quote:

If you ask executives at America’s top pharmaceutical drugs about the high costs of prescription drugs, they’ll tell you that high and increasing drug prices are needed to sustain research and development efforts. But numerous studies have debunked those claims.

One study, by the group Families USA, found that America’s major drug companies are spending more than twice as much on marketing, advertising and administration than they do on research and development.

The report also found, not surprisingly, that the total profits of America’s top pharmaceutical companies far exceed their research and development costs.

The pharmaceutical industry isn't hurting. It's the 3rd most profitable industry as well as the most powerful Washington lobby.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/f...s/profits/