Medication expenses -- curious

[Deanne]

What makes one medication cost so much more than another? I understand the research cost part of it, but how is it that research costs can't be spread out among different medications to balance out the costs? Are the ingredients for some things that much more expensive? If so, then what makes some ingredients so expensive?

[monrein]

My understanding about this issue is that when a company develops a med and it is still under patent, they try to get as much profit out of it as possible because once the patent expires and it goes generic the cost usually comes down since other companies can then produce it and competition in the marketplace brings the price down.

I'm sure there are many other factors I'm not aware of.

[stauffenberg]

One of the main factors not mentioned is greed, even to the point of murdering the people who cannot afford the cost of medicines inflated in price to the point at which the wealthy stockholders' agents have determined is the critical point for milking the most money out of the drug.  Many drugs for which astronomical sums are being charged today were developed through research funding largely provided for free to the companies by the government, and yet once the drug companies are able to get a patent on a medication because they spent the last research penny to top up the government's 99 cent investment to make a usable pharmaceutical, they behave as though all the research costs were their own which had to be compensated by vulturing profits off the sick and the dying.

Every other civilized country on the planet imposes strict price restrictions on the drug licensing agreements which permit companies to sell their pharmaceuticals there, so drugs everywhere outside of America are mercifully inexpensive.  The US government doesn't bother doing that, since it is really just an agent for the rich corporations that fund election campaigns, and not the genuine representative of the democratic will.

Rant over.