Why Are Prescription Medications So Expensive In The United States

In 2013, pharmaceutical cost per capita in the US was $1,112 compared to Switzerland’s $730. Private insurance plans widely vary on medication coverage. However, there are programs that are no cost to the individual that can decrease the cost of medications for people without

1. Pricing: Many Asian and African countries are poor and cannot afford the costly medicines. The Pharmaceutical firms spend vast amounts on R&D in creating and marketing drugs, thus charging high prices enables for cost of capital recovery and profit generation.

One added reason could be the current high number of mergers in the industry. Which in the long run leads to less competition, driving the innovation down and the prices up. In the United States, there are no regulatory efforts to stop the companies for charging so much. They are one of the only nations that believes in a free market for drug pricing. They are only one of two countries that allow direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals. As of today the United States does not import drugs from

The journalist Nadia Kounang further explains the differences between what the U.S pays on drugs and other similar developed countries, in the article Why pharmaceuticals are cheaper abroad. Kounang displays how much American need to pay for Gleevec (cancer medication) which is $6,214 (per month/per customer) whereas in Canada patients only have to pay $1,141 and in the U.K $2,697 (Kounang 1). These prices are the result of different organizations setting different price ranges with drug companies (U.S.A), and these enables American insurance companies to take advantage of it (Kounang 1). While in other countries there are not as many organizations, so this helps to set a deal of a price that benefit both the drug company and consumers (Kounang). Strictly speaking, by having these different medical insurance companies it has made it difficult for patients to afford their medication because there is no singular organization that can set drug price ranges with pharmaceuticals, while in other countries they don’t a variety of different medical insurances which enables the country to provide treatments that its citizens can afford. Thereby, if the government does not fully cooperates with other medical insurances, lowering the cost of medication will be difficult without affecting research and development. And as a result people who can not afford them will still struggle to obtain their required prescriptions.

Prescription drug prices are on the rise in the United States. Currently, the United States does not implement a price control on prescription drugs. Every day the supply and demand for prescription drugs fluctuates. Pharmaceutical companies produce drugs that are necessary for survival. Therefore, it is necessary for research and development to continue in the United States. Those suffering the effects of exorbitant prices must do so until a generic form of a prescription drug is produced. Once approved by the FDA, new drugs will make their appearance on the market and patients will no longer suffer financially. Until then, it is necessary for pharmaceutical companies to price their drugs based on the idea of supply and demand. This produces the profit used to fund research. Price controls discourage innovation. If a price control were set in place, of course the price of prescription drugs would decrease. However, the development of new drugs decreases with it. Today’s generation would benefit from lower prices, while future generations would suffer from the loss of drug innovation.

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans use prescribed drugs, for several reasons, everyday. Prescription drugs have become a huge problem to America's health care system due to their exponentially rising price - so America must ask ourselves why prescribed drugs are so expensive, how these prices affect us, and how we can fix these dangerously high prices.

Background: Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. Drug costs increased 12.6 percent last year, more than double the rise in overall medical costs. A new Kaiser Health poll shows that most Americans think prescription drug costs in this country are unreasonable, and that drug companies put profits before people.1 Take the example of albendazole which is broad spectrum anti-parasitic drug. In late 2010, the listed average wholesale price for albendazole was $5.92 per typical daily dose in the United States and less than $1 per typical daily dose overseas. By 2013, the listed typical daily dose price for USA market had increased to $119.58. Medicaid data show that spending on albendazole increased from less than $100,000 per year in 2008, when the average cost was $36.10 per prescription, to more than $7.5 million in 2013, when the average cost was $241.30 per prescription2. Albendazole is a very basic medicine but if we take the case of oncology medicines we are going to realize that oncology drugs have become synonymous with extremely high cost. The average cancer drug price for approximately 1 year of therapy was less than 10,000 per year in 2010 and had increased to $30,000 to $50,000 by 2005. In 2012, 12 of the 13 new drugs approved for cancer indications were priced above $100,000 per year of therapy. With typical out-of-pocket expenses of 20% to 30%, the financial burden would be $20,000 to 30,000 a year, nearly half of the average annual

In 2014, prescription drug costs made up 9.8% of total annual health care expenditures; retail prescription drug spending accounted for $297.7 billion (Hemphill, 2017). The need for prescription medication will continue to increase as the population ages. Chronic disease is also on the rise, and the pharmaceutical industry is under pressure to innovate. Healthcare cost are out of control, and medication seems to be the only solution to try and contain the costs. Doctors no longer focus on teaching patients how to care for themselves naturally. There are many herbs and supplements that can take the place of a prescription, but doctors write prescriptions for their own personal gain.

This casebook concentrates on the negative effects that the pharmaceutical industry’s trade and production policies have on third world nations suffering from disease epidemics. My position is that pharmaceutical companies are not concerned with the health benefits of their drugs, but rather with the market that their drugs generate. I illustrate this notion by describing the trade policies that pharmaceutical companies influence and the pharmaceutical companies’ production policies which concentrate on producing life-style drugs rather than drugs that cure life-threatening diseases.

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.

ortunately for pharmaceutical companies, the United States government has not done nearly enough to regulate the companies. Pharmaceutical companies are able to spend millions of dollars on marketing, and not only on the cheesy direct-to-consumer ads we see ending with “ask your doctor”. The drugs that these companies make are not a standard item on the market; one needs permission to obtain drugs. Pharmaceutical companies understand this, so they spend a majority of their marketing funds on advertising to health care providers. In 2012, of the $27 million the industry spent on marketing, $24 million was for doctors (Pew Charitable Trusts). Aside from the skewed proportions in marketing fund division, 9 out of 10 pharmaceutical companies spent

In this case for me one of the company's problem is the low income to their company which must solve the problem of management to have a good image of the company concerned. Cheap Pharma provides a way to reach them have a big income due to gradual collapse of their sales as a result desired by Mr. de Guzman and the other two board of directors agreed to buy shares of stocks of Green Med where it has the boost to help build a unique products that can provide big profits for their company.

A lot of people, particularly the patients who need them, are beginning to wonder why American drug prices are so high. It makes sense why the pharmaceutical companies are selling at the prices they do: they are a business; and they want to, above all else, make a profit. But the real question is: what are all of the

Phase III is the first large-scale trial of human testing. This phase can only begin if the new drug shows to be effective in the phase II. Phase III seeks to further determine the effectiveness of the drug. This is done by testing the drug on different populations, meaning that testing will be done on more people, testing will be done on different drug doses, and the drug will be tested on patients who are also taking other drugs. If Phases I through III show the investigational new drug to be safe and effective, then the pharmaceutical company will file a New Drug Application (NDA). The NDA includes both the results of the first three trial phases and data on how the drug is manufactured (Frank & Hargreaves, 2003; Lipsky & Sharp, 2001;

Yes, there is an impact on the pharmaceutical company, like those in the US as a result of differential prices between that country and other nations.