It says that generic prices fell 22 percent in the past year while brand-name drug prices rose 13 percent. The rise in brand prices is due to the host of expensive new specialty drugs coming on the market, for example, many of the recent releases are drugs used to treat advanced cancer when other drugs don't work.
It echoes the debate we discussed in class, between PhRMA defending the need to support drug innovation and advance new treatments, and the pushback about whether the potentially marginal benefits are worth the high costs.
Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota, is quoted saying that drug benefit managers are going to have a tough time deciding how and whether to cover many of these drugs:“We’re going to be faced with the issue that any drug at any price will not be sustainable.”
