Posted by Michael Wonder on 12 May 2018
Americans, tired of high-priced drugs, are fighting back
10 May 2018 - If one concern unites Americans, it is the high prices of prescription drugs. One incident in particular tarnished much of the pharma industry: in 2015 the price of an anti-parasitic drug, Daraprim, jumped from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
But large price increases remain stubbornly commonplace (see chart). According to IQVIA, a health-data firm, the wholesale prices of leading drugs such as Humira, Enbrel and Lyrica increased by more than 120% between 2012 and 2017. Other data show that cancer-drug prices rose from about $10,000 to over $100,000 per year in just over a decade to 2012.
Further ahead, a new generation of cures, such as a gene therapy for haemophilia, may cost more than $1million.
