<story><title>Why drug prices in America are so high (2016)</title><url>http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/09/economist-explains-2?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/whydrugpricesinamericaaresohigh</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>doktrin</author><text>&amp;gt; These high prices support innovation, they argue—not just for America, but for the world.&lt;p&gt;I suspect this is in fact somewhat true, but how is it a coherent argument in favor of higher prices? The American people &amp;#x2F; American &lt;i&gt;elderly&lt;/i&gt; (obviously) don&amp;#x27;t have some unspoken moral obligation to subsidize pharmaceutical R&amp;amp;D for the whole world.&lt;p&gt;Governments around the world are able to negotiate affordable rates for their citizens, yet in the US we have to listen to these completely insane justifications?&lt;p&gt;IMO if the US government (who presumably agree with the drug companies on this) feels this strongly about subsidizing research they could always expand federal research grants and&amp;#x2F;or NIH funding. Yet I suspect that&amp;#x27;s a non starter for political reasons.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andrewla</author><text>It seems even odder considering that many of the pharmaceutical companies are not US based, so it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to make sense even from a protectionist standpoint.&lt;p&gt;Just as an exercise in cherry-picking, I grabbed the first drug from [1], &amp;quot;Relvar Ellipta&amp;quot;, which apparently costs 6.3 times more in the US than the UK.  This is despite the fact that the drug is manufactured by GSK [2], which is UK-based.  It was developed by Innoviva, though, which is US-based [3].  What this means in terms of price-setting agreements and licensing, though, is not easy to see, and whether research grants would substitute for the expected profits from the pricing discrepencies.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5023951&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5023951&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Fluticasone_furoate&amp;#x2F;vilanterol&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Fluticasone_furoate&amp;#x2F;vilanterol&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.inva.com&amp;#x2F;contact-us&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.inva.com&amp;#x2F;contact-us&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Why drug prices in America are so high (2016)</title><url>http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/09/economist-explains-2?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/whydrugpricesinamericaaresohigh</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>doktrin</author><text>&amp;gt; These high prices support innovation, they argue—not just for America, but for the world.&lt;p&gt;I suspect this is in fact somewhat true, but how is it a coherent argument in favor of higher prices? The American people &amp;#x2F; American &lt;i&gt;elderly&lt;/i&gt; (obviously) don&amp;#x27;t have some unspoken moral obligation to subsidize pharmaceutical R&amp;amp;D for the whole world.&lt;p&gt;Governments around the world are able to negotiate affordable rates for their citizens, yet in the US we have to listen to these completely insane justifications?&lt;p&gt;IMO if the US government (who presumably agree with the drug companies on this) feels this strongly about subsidizing research they could always expand federal research grants and&amp;#x2F;or NIH funding. Yet I suspect that&amp;#x27;s a non starter for political reasons.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Symmetry</author><text>Milton Freidman&amp;#x27;s solution was to allow re-importation of drugs from countries where they were less expensive.  Either the drug companies could raise prices abroad, accept lower prices domestically, not sell abroad, or some combination of all of the above.</text></comment>