Why do prescription drugs cost so much in the United States? A decade of science offers some answers.
The major drivers for America’s drug prices are the extended patent protection companies get for new medicines and the lack of price negotiation by insurance companies, including public programs such as Medicare, according to a newpaper. The paper reviews previously published studies, dating back to 2005, about drug costs in the U.S.
Drug prices’ defenders often say that companies need to charge a lot to recoup the costs of researching and developing innovative medicines. But the new paper argues that’s not true. Any given drug’s price tag isn’t related to the amount of time or effort it took to be invented. Rather, prices are determined solely by what insurance companies and patients are willing to pay. After all, the prices of somegeneric and older drugs have been rising in recent years, even though generics cost relatively little to create and the costs of decades-old treatments were paid for long ago. The drug over which Martin Shkreli gained infamy for raising prices by 5,000 percent, for example, was invented 60 years ago.
[For more of this story, written by Francie Diep, go to https://psmag.com/science-expl...32e8e2a5e#.9bju12p3y]
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