Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10050

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Norris J.
Link cost to clinical outcome
BMJ 2007 May 12; 334:(7601):968
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7601/968-b

Abstract:

The laudable UK initiative to drive the costs of drugs down to affordable assumes that there is consistency in drug pricing between producer and recipient countries and that price is a barrier to their use.1

When generics are included in pricing studies and compared with the price per gram of active ingredient, Japan and Switzerland are more expensive than the United States. When price per standard unit (a rough measure of dose, which differs across countries) is compared, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden are more expensive than the US. And many governments subsidise research and development of their pharmaceutical and vaccine industries, making international comparisons difficult.2

Other factors contribute to a drug’s price when it finally reaches a patient. Some governments procure medicines efficiently but charge markedly higher prices to patients.3

Yet the problem remains more profound than simply a matter of prices: the fragility of health . . .