We Need a Revolution in the Pharmaceutical Drug Industry! By Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Imagine you live in a small village in Africa and your child is dying of a treatable disease. It is brought to your attention that the drug used to treat your child's disease costs less than $1 to produce but you would have to pay more than $1,000 to purchase it (an amount that is impossible for you to pay). Tragically, you watch your child die as you are consumed with grief, confusion, and resentment for global pricing structures.Of course, pharmaceutical drugs cannot be free. Companies need incentives to conduct research and to increase research and development. Without this incentive, unfortunately, we cannot be assured that the industry would advance as quickly and effectively as we would hope, or come to have relied upon. But there must be some limit here.A U.S. Senate Committee once found that the profit margins for pharmaceutical companies were four times those of other companies. The report also showed that pharmaceutical drug price inflation was six times that of the general rate of inflation (between 1980-1992).American law has abetted the dramatic increase in prescription drug costs. Medicare Part D, an unfunded mandate passed during the Bush administration in 2006, offered prescription drugs to Medicare beneficiaries for the first time. However, under this law, the federal government is forbidden from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. As a result, Americans are compelled to pay the highest prices in the world for presc...

Source: PharmaGossip - October 16, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs