Medicines only work if patients can afford them: solutions for the high drug prices era

Forbes

18 March 2019 - Since 2000, more than 500 new medicines have been approved by the FDA. 

Because of those medicines, many Americans are living longer, better and more active lives. However, new medicines often come with high price tags. And in an environment of rising drug costs, affordability isn’t just a simple matter of economics — it can play a significant role in determining health outcomes.

Perhaps no other drug better illustrates the effect of cost on health than insulin. Over the past decade, insulin prices in the United States have tripled. Most of that increase has been driven by analog insulin medications, which are the newest forms of synthetic insulin. For example, the price of one brand of analog insulin, Humalog, was just $20 per vial in 1996. Today, it’s $275 per vial — a 1,275% increase. (Eli Lilly, the drug’s manufacturer, announced it will soon offer an “authorised generic” of the drug at a 50% discount.)

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Michael Wonder

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Michael Wonder

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Medicine , US , Pricing , Affordability