Break Through Drugs

The high prices set by pharmaceutical companies for drugs allows the companies to continue researching, developing, and producing new drugs. As new diseases are discovered, new medications must be discovered in order to treat them.

Medicine has been used since ancient times, but it has greatly developed through the centuries. Today, people have doctors, nurses, surgeons, therapists, and many other individuals in the health field. Society’s definition of a healthy lifestyle, and the way people live, has greatly changed, and it has given most people a new perspective on society 's health. Before medications and doctors, people often died, or had no way to recover from illnesses and disease, because there were no cures. Advances in medicine are made every day. These advances could be a new allergy medication, a new vaccine to prevent a deadly disease, or a new way of performing surgeries, but all of these advances have one thing in common: they can save lives and make a better America.

In the business of drug production over the years, there have been astronomical gains in the technology of pharmaceutical drugs. More and more drugs are being made for diseases and viruses each day, and there are many more drugs still undergoing research and testing. These "miracle" drugs are expensive, however, and many Americans cannot afford these prices.

In modern times medicine has been transformed by waves of discovery that have brought marvels like antibiotics, vaccines and heart stents.

A substantial piece of the U.S market in the health sector is run by the prescription drugs and, therefore, making the U.S the global largest market of pharmaceuticals accounting for more than a third of the world’s expenditure on drugs. It is estimated that in 2014 slightly over $300 billion were spent on prescription drugs which accounts for roughly 10 cents of every dollar in the U.S healthcare market. The U.S expenditure on prescription drugs has been growing at an annual rate of 11% for the last 27 years between 1980 and 2007. But the expenditure has slowed between 2008 and 2013 to about 2% annual average which has been occasioned by several reasons including the 2008 financial quagmire which was also responsible for the reduction in the overall U.S health care costs, the application of controls towards insurer drug utilization and also the production of a less amount of new blockbuster drugs within that period (Institute for Healthcare Informatics, 2014)..

This is a great present to the drugstore industry. There are new drugs to treat previously untreatable illnesses, and new diseases, e.g. Viagra for men’s unhappiness, Zoloft for depression, Avastin for colon cancer, Herceptin for breast cancer, Nicotine patches for smokers to kick the habit, Tamiflu for a potential bird flu pandemic, vaccine for swine (H1N1) flu pandemic, Tekturna/Rasilez for hypertension and various new drugs for AIDS and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). The new medicines are very expensive, e.g. a year’s supply of Avastin costs about $55,000. Eli Lilly has sold about $4.8 billion of Zyprexa in 2007 for schizophrenia and yet most people have never heard of this medicine. There are existing drugs now approved to treat new illnesses and thus increase their sales revenue. For example, Lyrica was originally intended to treat pain caused by nerve damage in people with diabetes. It is now approved by FDA to treat Fibromyalgia which affects 5.8 million Americans per WebMD. Big advances in genetics, biology and stem cells research are expected to produce a new class of drugs to treat diabetes, Parkinson’s and various rare genetic disorders. For example the new drug Ilaris from Novartis targets genetic causes of an inherited disorder that there are only 7000 known cases worldwide. However, Novartis hopes to gradually broaden its drugs to a blockbuster drug to more common disorders caused by similar genetics. Technology and modern life introduce and

Within the last ten years a new topic has been on the discussion board. The topic, biosimilar drugs. Biosimilar drugs are drugs that are similar to biologics, but does not have the exact same chemical make up as biologics (). The reason for this is the fact that biologics are large scale molecular drugs that require a complex system to make the biologics. Biosimilar drugs would act like how generic drugs do in today’s market. One of the key goals of biosimilar drugs is to lower the overall cost of a medication (). The best way to describe it is the amount of money spent on a biologic as a patient is extremely high and the cost of a biosimilar drug would save the patient money by charging less.

Numerous prescriptions move the treatment worldview toward counteractive action by permitting patients to stay away from costly hospitalizations and long term care. As indicated by an investigation, “The U.S. health care system could spare $213 billion every year if pharmaceuticals were utilized appropriately.” (American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, n.d.)

Thus, by combining my passions of biochemistry and serving others, I know that I can make the most change as a pharmaceutical researcher. The chemistry and biochemistry behind the body and medicine has always fascinated me. The complexities of every medication or vitamin in combination with any health defect serves as a puzzle too interesting to leave unsolved. I realize these changes that need to be made fall under a political scope more than the microscope of biochemistry. However, I think that by approaching the development of these drugs with the idea of lower prices in mind will make an unfathomable difference in so many

Psychology has been an interesting and has taught me many things that have helped me understand and change my life for the better. I knew much coming in because I had taken a psychology class in high school, but I was able to approach this semester with a more open mindset and actually learn something rather than just trying to memorize for a test. I spent more time thinking about real world applications and was able to apply some of the aspects taught in the class as well as some of the pieces I read from the book. The three areas of psychology that were most impactful to my life this year were drugs, depression and stress.

These new discoveries are helping in our society instead of wrecking it. Now that we have all these new medicines less people are dying leading to a bigger population.

Rising healthcare costs are a growing concern among individuals, employers, and the federal government. The national conversation on how to best control those costs has forced many drug manufacturers to reevaluate the economics of new, expensive drugs and therapies. Now more than ever, the need to evaluate outcomes and costs associated with alternative treatments has never been greater.

The consumption of drug has been done in all societies for ages, but with the pass of the time it has changed the characteristics of the consumption. This situation is because the influence of social factors. Now days, our society is infest with this issue “DRUGS”. The use of most of the drugs are illegal, however it had become normal to use it.

The information put forth in this TED talk was regarding the manner treatment of disease was approached. But to discuss the future of medicine, he begins with addressing the past. The prior and current model has a downward motion and is “so profoundly simple is can be summarized in 6 words: Have disease -> Take pill -> Kill something” (TED 2015). This method has been dominant since the 1950’s because of the antibiotic revolution stemming from the introduction of antibiotics into the United States which took place over 100 years ago. The mechanism under which antibiotics function is likened to a lock and key and the specificity of the lock and key mechanism was so exquisite that fatal or lethal diseases, such as tuberculosis or pneumonia,

New discoveries and advances in technology revolutionize the ways illnesses are cured and treated leads to a change in the cure, delivery system, and training of medicine. The new tools used for cure, known as pharmaceuticals, gave birth to a booming new industry. Today, the issue with chronic illnesses like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes is that they only get worse. Using a quick fix up with medicine creates more side effects that can even cause a whole new illness, or possibly a drug related death. People want faster results on acute conditions. The time constraints fuel increases in pharmaceutical medicine even more.