Saturday, April 01, 2017

No big marches here in USA?-----How The US Subsidizes Cheap Drugs For Europe

How The US Subsidizes Cheap Drugs For Europe:
"The price of a medical miracle varies by country. 
Imatinib -- also known as Gleevec -- was hailed as a miracle cure to treat chronic myeloid leukemia, a rare type of cancer, upon the drug's approval in 2001. 
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  • In the U.S., a year of treatment cost $92,000 in 2013
  • Everywhere else in the world, including in developed countries, it cost far less. Germany’s price tag was $54,000. 
  • In the U.K., it was $33,500 for annual care.

Medicines in the U.S. frequently cost significantly more than the same versions in other advanced countries. 
...“U.S. consumers are in fact subsidizing other countries’ public health systems, at least with respect to drug pricing,” Jacob Sherkow, an associate professor at New York Law School, said.
These price discrepancies and their implications are well known throughout the industry but rarely discussed outside of it. 
Pharmaceutical companies have long defended the high price of drugs as necessary to pay for the research and development of new drugs, but the differences in pricing essentially means that consumers in the U.S. are contributing more than those in other countries..."

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