Last year pharmaceutical costs grew 13.6 percent – faster than any other part of the health care industry – and pharmaceutical company profits were nearly 20 percent in 2012, double the average profit margin for the S&P 500. That explains why almost 75 percent of Americans still believe drug prices are unreasonable.
It’s no wonder, when this week one drug company announced a plan to increase by over 4,000 percent the price of a 62-year-old drug on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. This isn’t the first time a drug company has shocked the public with astronomical prices. But it can’t continue.
The above excerpt was originally published in The New York Times.
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