Unregulated price control on prescription medications has led parametrical companies to overprice drug treatments. The increase in cancer drug prices in the last 15 years has many contributing factors and is harming our patients and our health care system.1 Supporting government intervention to lower the price of prescription medications can solve the unreasonable priced cancer drug treatments. On the other half, it may bring a downward spiral in our innovations in research and development for new treatments.
Today drugs represent a monopoly, taking thousands of dollars from out of pocket pay from cancer patients. The financial burden of cancer treatment would be $20,000 to 30,000 a year, nearly half of the average annual household income in the United States.1 Its also said that patients with cancer pay 50% to 100% more for the same patented drug than other countries.1 Several drugs that prolong life by years while another by days are priced the same.1This is unfair to patients, if they are unaware of these types of drugs. Most cancers are not curable, and most approved cancer drugs work only for a limited time. 2 They are only beneficial for a short period so why price overprice them?
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Many patients discontinue with their drug treatments due to them being highly priced.1 Regulated drug price control may benefit the public but not so much for the economy. The revenues and profits that companies make are used mainly to advertise new drug treatments and fund clinical research. Pharmaceutical companies spend only 1.3% of their revenues on basic research.1 This make no sense that only a small portion is used for research while the rest is spent on marketing. Price controlling may reduce marketing and advertising on new drugs, which may in return produce low revenues and profits for the company. Then we ask ourselves, what matters most the people or
Louise C. Cope et al, investigated the impact of non-medical prescribing. Non-medical prescribing could be evaluated through the NMP, or other health practitioner such as GP, and patients. Currently there is limited information on how NMP has impacted other professions, such as radiographer, optometrists and physiotherapists. Personally, I think this is due to how recent these professions gained the right to prescribe. Most of the findings have been extremely positive, with limited disadvantages. Within this evaluation of NMP “students who are becoming NMPs felt that the programme provided them with adequate knowledge to prescribe with some stating that the period of learning in practice was ‘the most valuable part of the course’”
In America today, many people are in need of medical help. In fact,the Federal Trade Commission estimates that 75% of the population complain of physical problems (Federal Trade Commission 9). They complain, for example, of fatigue, colds, headaches, and countless other "ailments." When these symptoms strike, 65% purchase over-the counter, or OTC, drugs. In order to take advantage of this demand, five billion dollars is spent by the pharmaceutical industry on marketing each year . This marketing, usually in the form of advert...
Many businesses that achieve great success become greedy and want more. Pharmaceutical companies, such as Turing, have been overpricing life-saving
Although writing a prescription may be an easy way to put a bandaid on a problem, people tend to forget that medication can’t be responsible for curing our nation. Slowly we are becoming a country where pills are handed out like candy, causing a severe series of negative effects and downfalls. Ray Bradbury, the author of the award winning novel Fahrenheit 451, is definitely in agreement. In 1951, when the novel was written, Bradbury was able to make the prediction that the innocent use of medication would soon turn into an extreme drug epidemic, and unfortunately he wasn’t wrong. The overuse of drugs in the United States, such as mental illness medication
... (2013) IMS health study points to a declining cost curve for U.S. medicines in 2012 Retrieved from http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/ims/menuitem.d248e29c86589c9c30e81c033208c22a/?vgnextoid=8659cf4add48e310VgnVCM10000076192ca2RCRD&vgnextchannel=437879d7f269e210VgnVCM10000071812ca2RCRD&vgnextfmt=default
Yu, Winnie and Joel Hay. 1999. “Drug Patents and Prices: Can we Achieve Better Outcomes?” Measuring the Prices of Medical Treatments. Pages 27-28.
In America, it has become a battle to earn a high paying job to cope with the expenses of a typical American. It has become even more of a battle for some people to afford medical prescriptions to keep healthy. Health becomes a crucial issue when discussed among people. No matter what, at one point or another, everyone is going to stand as a victim of the pharmaceutical industry. The bottom line is Americans are paying excessive amounts of money for medical prescriptions. Health-Care spending in the U.S. rose a stunning 9.3% in 2002, which is the greatest increase for the past eleven years. (Steele 46) Many pharmaceutical companies are robbing their clients by charging extreme rates for their products.
Why are the prices so high? Some critics of the drug companies argue that the larger firms are ripping off the American public, are dishonest and, in some cases, unsafe. On the other hand, there are health care workers such as doctors and their supporters who claim that research and testing for drugs costs money. This supposedly justifies their prices for their products. Also, as an argument to their side, they say that their practice is a benefit to the improvement to mankind. It is a life saving business, but are these prices justified? As one can see, this is a very important issue in medicine today. It affects everyone involved with medicine, which is much of the American public. It also affects the physicians and drug makers.
Moreover, some of the new drugs being introduced at such large prices have only slight marginal improvements over the already pre-existing drugs. One example of this would be Zaltrap, a drug approved to treat colorectal cancer. Zaltrap was discovered by Regeneron, an emerging biopharmaceutical company, but sold by the French drug maker Sanofi. Yet it worked no better in clinical trials than Roche’s cancer drug called Avastin, which on average adds only 1.4 months to life expectancy for patients inflicted with advanced colorectal cancer. Sanofi priced Zaltrap at $11,000 a month, which is twice Avastin’s price. At any rate, there was resistance. Doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, which is one of the world’s leading cancer centers,
With the United States being the only country allowing a free market to determine drug prices, it has the potential for some companies to take advantage of it. Other European countries such as Germany, Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom have set government regulations on the prices of drugs and expenditures (Gross, D. J., Ratner, J., Perez, J., & Glavin, S. L.,1994). This set regulation prevents companies from price gouging, and these regulations are also due to their universal prescription drug benefits.“ A recent study by the U.S. Department of Commerce reviewed pricing in 11 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries and found that, for patented drugs that were best sellers in the United States, the prices in other OECD countries were 18 to 67 percent less than U.S. prices, depending on the country.”(Sood, N., De Vries, H., Gutierrez, I., Lakdawalla, D., & Goldman, D., 2009). With the United States being the world’s leader is drug development, they are also the world’s leader in drug prices with their free market system (Gross, D. J., Ratner, J., Perez, J., & Glavin, S. L., 1994).
The rate of death due to prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has escalated 313 percent over the past decade. According to the Congressional Quarterly Transcription’s article "Rep. Joe Pitt Holds a Hearing on Prescription Drug Abuse," opioid prescription drugs were involved in 16,650 overdose-caused deaths in 2010, accounting for more deaths than from overdoses of heroin and cocaine. Prescribed drugs or painkillers sometimes "condemn a patient to lifelong addiction," according to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This problem not only affects the lives of those who overdose but it affects the communities as well due to the convenience of being able to find these items in drug stores and such. Not to mention the fact that the doctors who prescribe these opioids often tend to misuse them as well. Abusing these prescribed drugs can “destroy dreams and abort great destinies," and end the possibility of the abuser to have a positive impact in the community.
With the increased cost of manufacturing, pharmaceutical companies have been divesting in their smaller or less profit making operations and focus on large segments. Many Pharmaceutical companies sold their manufacturing sites to contract manufacturing organizations. The dynamics of interfacing with contract manufacturing organization added intricacy in pharmaceutical supply chain network of pharmaceutical companies.
So one is going about your business, doing your normal routine and it’s time for a doctor’s visit. You go in there, the doctor performs his regular examine and sends you home. The next phone call you get from your doctor is a tragic one. They have just diagnosed you with a disease that has a low survival rate. And so begins the medical treatments. These treatments could last weeks, months, or years, during which you will face some of the most difficult choices. Some of our family members or friends have heard these words before and unfortunately doctors can only do so much to help, and the cost of treatments are on the rise. According to the NY Times, you could be paying up to a million dollars in one year just to pay for treatments, drugs,
This is putting the customers in jeopardy. They don't have a choice when it comes to medication. Having such high prices also puts the patients at risk. If you don't have enough money to buy something, you obviously can't buy it, but prescriptions are essential to many people's lives and if you can't take them because of the prices it could be hazardous. The United States ended up spending 374 billion dollars on prescription drugs in 2014 and the price is only going to increase. I believe that the prices for medications should go down because sometimes you can't help it and you really don't want to be paying for medicine, but you don't have a choice. There are also people who don't have insurance because they cant afford it, and that also impacts the price of the prescription. Having no insurance depend on the drug you need, can make a huge difference.
This is why my primary care provider keeps trying to push pills on me. Furthermore, Big Pharma buries research that doesn’t suit their pharmaceutical mongering. I wonder if there some cures for certain types of cancers? Their power seems to have no bounds. Additionally, the writing of the DSM was affected by Big