PBS
09/19/2015
Is Profit or Innovation Driving the Rising Costs of Drugs?
After Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of a drug from $13 a pill to $750, two leading Democratic candidates for president are proposing big changes. On PBS NewsHour, Dr. Bach provides one view on the situation.
The latest uproar began after The New York Times reported how one company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of a drug from $13 a pill to $750. It follows headlines about the rising costs of new cancer drugs, as well as a breakthrough drug for hepatitis C that initially cost more than $80,000 for a course of treatment.
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are proposing big changes, including lowering patient costs and bigger discounts for Medicare. Judy Woodruff discusses the rising costs of prescriptions drugs with Dr. Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Dr. Thomas Stossel of Harvard Medical School. There is no true system in place to hold down drug prices, granting room for pharmaceutical companies to become increasingly bold and test what the market will bear.
Watch the segment here.
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