11 March 2016 - Concern is growing about the implications of rising drug prices for individuals and health systems around the world. With little transparency around the costs of drug development, Narcyz Ghinea and colleagues call for greater accountability from drug companies to ensure a fair price for new medicines.

In 2014, the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics estimated that, by 2018, global spending on medicines would increase to almost $1.3tr (£900bn; €1.2tr), an increase of over 30% over five years.1 Forty per cent of this growth is expected to come from specialty drugs such as cancer drugs and immunosuppressants, with predictions that by 2018, such drugs will account for 50% of drug spending in the United States.

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