Posted by Michael Wonder on 12 Nov 2018
Biosimilar drugs promise to slash health care costs in rich countries
8 November 2018 - The world's top-selling drug now faces biosimilars that are 80% cheaper.
It’s the prices, stupid.” That simple assessment of America’s wildly expensive health-care system was made 15 years ago by Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist who died last year. Health costs as a proportion of America’s economic output have soared since, from 14.5% in 2003 to over 17% in 2017, with drug-price inflation a big culprit.
Less than 2% of Americans are treated with specialty biotech drugs, but these account for as much as 35% of total drug spending.
