The Last Bastion: U.S. Pharmaceutical Prices Under Pressure

Companies selling pharmaceutical products in the United States could see increasing controls on their products prices as mounting pressure from consumers forces government to cap drug prices, says a major new report from Urch Publishing.

(PRWEB) September 22, 2004 -- Pharmaceutical Pricing - Global Perspectives suggests that U.S. politicians may have to act in response to growing public questioning over why U.S. drug prices are often significantly higher than European countries and neighbouring Canada.

Spending on pharmaceuticals has been blamed for the recent rapid increase in healthcare costs. Urchs report highlights two key reasons why spending may have increased. Firstly, there is a high demand amongst patients in the U.S. for the latest healthcare treatments and an associated trend of physicians willing to prescribe newer and more expensive drugs, and secondly, and more controversially, there are much more direct means for pharmaceutical companies to advertise their drugs in the U.S. and this has been linked to an increase in the uptake of the newer and more expensive medicines.

As patients in the US are having to shoulder a greater level of the costs of their treatments they are beginning to question whether it is ethical for pharmaceutical companies to be allowed to price their products so highly," commented Dr Faiz Kermani, the reports author. For instance, consumer groups have been highly critical of the differences in prices that exist between the US and neighbouring Canada".

With pricing becoming such an important political issue, the increase in drug spending has resulted in greater efforts to implement cost-constraint strategies, before the situation gets out of control. Government-funded health plans are weighing the benefits of new therapies against other medical expenditures, and uninsured patients are having to choose between increasingly expensive prescriptions and foregoing treatment altogether.

Unlike other pharmaceutical markets, particularly those in Europe, the most prominent feature of the US is that it remains a relatively free market. Unlike in Europe and Japan, government intervention has been minimal and so US pharmaceutical pricing levels have owed more to general trends in supply and demand than other markets influences. This has meant that international pharmaceutical companies have been able to consistently rely on the US to drive growth.

Pharmaceutical Pricing - Global Perspectives is a strategic report, that analyses all aspects of pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement strategies complemented by key case studies.

Urch Publishing is an independent business information publisher dedicated to delivering high quality information products to the global pharmaceuticals industry. For more information contact Urch on +44 (0) 20 7060 1099 or email service@urchpublishing.com. Further information about the report and other publications, including full table of contents can be found at www.urchpublishing.com.

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