Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18426

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

Hopkins Tanne J
Study calculates true difference in drug prices between US and Europe
BMJ 2010 July 14; 341:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/341/jul14_3/c3699

Abstract:

The price of drugs for consumers in the United States, in comparison with what Europeans pay, is not as high as has commonly been thought, a study by two researchers at the London School of Economics has found.

They write: “Large differences in prices are mainly observed at the ex-factory level [the price the manufacturer sells at the factory door], but these are not the prices that consumers and payers pay.”

Previous studies said that US consumers paid higher prices for their drugs than those in other countries, with factory prices being twice as high in the US as in Europe and in other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. That led to calls for the US government to allow the re-importation of drugs. US consumers were said to be paying a disproportionately high share of research and development costs.

The new study suggests that prices negotiated . . .