E-DRUG: Financing drug research and development (2)
---------------------------------------------------
Dear colleagues,
Professor Reidenberg seems to boost the argument I mentioned earlier: If industry before releasing a new drug on the market would open its books and tell the reimbursement organisations and/or the registration authorities what the exact cost of developing that specific drug had been and based its price setting on those data - as was done in France and Belgium - the situation would be much more transparent.
It would make it impossible to compensate for losses on older drugs - as happened with ranitidine - but it would not solve the problem of exaggerated prices asked for old drugs still covered by patent. But at least it would be a good step in the right direction. No other industry branch would even think of raising prices to compensate for previous losses - they would price themselves out of the market. But because
society has manoeuvred itself in a position of dependence on medicines it does not have the power to change the situation - except taking a bus and buying drugs in Canada or Mexico. Then you arrive at the present conundrum, where prices are determined by "what the market can bear", and the poor drop out of the market place. At least the parallel import licensing in the EU has some levelling influence.
Best regards,
Leo Offerhaus
Netherlands
offerhausl@euronet.nl