Monday, November 16, 2009

Pharmaceutical Industry Raises Drug Prices by 9%


According to this story on the NY Times, Professor Schondelmeyer found that prices for the name-brand drugs most widely used by the Medicare population rose by 9.3 percent in the last year. Professor Stephen W. Schondelmeyer is a pharmaceutical economics professor at the University of Minnesota.

We know that it costs billions of dollars to research and develop a drug. Those costs are not trivial. We also know that the pharmaceutical industry is a for-profit industry and certain compounds end up being very profitable. Where is the balance? How do we ensure that new drugs are being discovered and that patients are receiving adequate and affordable treatment?

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