• Black-box negotiation processes” between drugmakers, insurers and the middlemen who haggle behind closed doors over how much money changes hands are hidden from patients.
• Drug companies set the list price of drugs at insanely high levels solely to ensure the highest possible payment by insurers once all the haggling is complete.
• There are markups along the supply chain by wholesalers and retailers, which want as big a piece of the profits.

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Prices increased for every brand-name drug of the top 20 most-prescribed brand-name drugs for seniors in the last five years. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]On average, prices for these drugs increased 12 percent every year for the last five years—approximately ten times higher than the average annual rate of inflation. [/inlinetweet]Twelve out of the 20 most commonly prescribed brand-name drugs for seniors had their prices increased by over 50 percent in the five-year period. Six of the 20 had price increases of over 100 percent. In one case, the weighted average wholesale acquisition cost for a single drug increased by 477 percent over a five-year period.  Continue reading →