Why Our Drugs Cost So Much, Florida

Nothing stops drug companies from charging the highest price the market will bear.

Confusion, anxiety and anger over the high cost of medicine has been on the rise for more than a decade. But even as the chorus of criticism has grown louder, the price of pharmaceutical products in the U.S. continues to skyrocket.

Consider:

The cost of Bavencio, a new cancer drug approved in March, is about $156,000 a year per patient.
A new muscular dystrophy drug came on the market late last year for an eye-popping price of $300,000 annually.
In 2016, the FDA appproved Tecentriq, a new bladder cancer treatment that costs $12,500 a month, or $150,000 a year.
Even older drugs that have long been on the market are not immune: The cost of insulin tripled between 2002 and 2013, despite no notable changes in the formulation or manufacturing process. And the four-decade-old EpiPen, a lifesaving allergy medication, has seen a price hike of 500 percent since 2007. Public outrage this past winter over its price tag ($609 for a package of two injectors) helped to speed up the arrival of lower-cost generic variations to the market.
The issue of high drug prices came up frequently in the recent election cycle, and in a speech in Kentucky in March, President Trump called drug prices “outrageous.” Increasingly, Americans are asking the same question of pharmaceutical companies: Why?“The simple answer is because there’s nothing stopping them,” says Leigh Purvis, director of health services research for the AARP Public Policy Institute.