Posted by Michael Wonder on 21 Feb 2019
High pharma margins squeeze health care systems
19 February 2019 - The WHO found that for every dollar invested in cancer research, pharmaceutical companies earned on average $14.50 (CHF14.50) in revenue.
Cancer drug prices are rising rapidly, and profit margins for pharmaceutical companies reach upwards of 80% for some medications according to a Swiss public television RTS investigation. Curing cancer for the masses could be challenging if healthcare systems are crippled by such expensive treatments.
A recent investigation by Swiss public television RTS found that some cancer treatments are billed at more than 80 times their manufacturing costs. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are in a race to develop the next big life-saving cancer drugs.
Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, explained in a commentary on CNBC that cell and gene therapies are bringing about a new era of cancer medicines “that are not just improving lives, they are saving them.”
