Something is very broken in the pharma industry where it is routine to sell a pill that takes 50 cents to manufacture for $200.
I’m not sure if this bill is a good idea or not, but the current system needs to be fixed.
Wasn’t Trump’s solution to make it illegal to charge US buyers more than foreign countries are paying? That seems fair to me.
1. The pill that sells for $200 doesn’t just have to cover the $.50 production cost, but the R&D cost for that pill and every other medication that never makes it out of the testing phase.
2. Even if R&D and production costs are relatively consistent across different types of medication, there is an enormous disparity in the UNIT costs because of the differences in how many units are sold. A medication that is used by 10,000 people is going to cost a lot more than one that is used by 10 million people.