Big Pharma Trips Over the Maxed-out American Consumer

[marmar]

Big Pharma Trips Over the Maxed-out American Consumer
by Wolf Richter • April 14, 2016


[font color="blue"]Even as Prescription Drug Volume Stagnates, Prices Soar.[/font]

Total US spending on prescription drugs in 2015, at the manufacturers’ level and as measured by “invoice pricing,” jumped by 12.2% to $424.8 billion, after having already soared 14.2% in 2014! A two-year increase of 28%!

So you’d think we’d get some results for all this moolah. But no.

Life expectancy in the US, at 78.7 years at birth, ranks between 34th and 52nd place globally, depending on who does the counting, wedged somewhere between Bahrain and Cuba, and about 5 years below the top. Among US states, life expectancy ranges from 81.3 years in Hawaii or 80.8 years in California to 74.9 years in Mississippi. It’s bad. But we handed Big Pharma a ballooning amount of money to get there.

This $424.8 billion in prescription drug spending at “invoice pricing” isn’t based on what Americans or their health insurers pay. According to IMS Health, which released the report, it reflects invoice pricing by drug companies to distributors. It includes neither price concessions by drug companies nor the “mark-ups and additional costs” before these drugs get to patients.

Another metric is “net price spending.” It’s based on the same wholesale prices but after “rebates, off-invoice discounts, and other price concessions made by manufacturers to distributors, health plans, and intermediaries.” And it jumped by 8.5% to $309.5 billion. ...................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/04/14/big-pharma-drug-prices-soar-volume-stagnates-best-way-to-wreck-consumers/

[Bluenorthwest]

1. The corruption of Big Pharma has been a focus of my activism for decades

I can't say more outside the Primary forum.

[Bayard]

2. Cost of research

My understanding of the outrageous price of drugs in this country is that we are footing the bill for most pharma research, clinical trials, bringing a product to market, etc. Other countries don't allow them to do this, and pass it on to consumers.

[Avalux]

4. Yep look at big pharma's profits.

It takes millions of dollars and years to take a compound through all the steps the FDA requires before it is approved and marketed as a drug. The FDA, in spite of it's failures, is there to protect human beings from really bad stuff that could kill them (as we saw before the Food and Drug Act became law). This is a good thing, and it costs money.

However - as you point out - the cost of protecting our well-being IS passed on to us while the corps producing the drugs pocket enormous sums of money from their sales.

There is no regulation on drug prices in the US. If a person needs a drug, big pharma knows that person will eat cat food to afford it, or worse - go without altogether. They simply don't care.

This needs to change - drug prices need to be regulated. Bernie will do this, Hillary will not.

[2naSalit]

3. Why I don't

bother with doctors and their drugs for most of my ailments. The ones who usually show up in my area are Rx pushers, prescribing the most expensive meds and not really diagnosing the real illness. I remember going in after hurting my back a work, the PA insisted I needed to start taking steroids but would not prescribe any tests or imaging, just take these steroids and I'll (meaning he would) be fine. Then I was cast into a whirlwind of denial by the state WC fucks because I didn't have a doctor confirm my injury. I went seven months without proper diagnosis and no income and unable to work due to incapacity to move normally and certainly not able to lift anything. Unfortunately I also lost my job as a cook... food is heavy as well as all industrial kitchen equipment and dishes.

I finally got on Medicaid now that my state has finally accepted the expansion under the ACA. But it will change as soon as I go to work next month. Meanwhile I have to try and get an MRI scheduled... four years after the injury which appears to have caused damage to my cervical spine.

Screw the medical industrial complex!