Life-saving drugs and their high costs often appear in the headlines. In the United States, drug prices for prescription drugs are increasing at a far faster rate than inflation. The patients who depend on life-saving medications are the ones who suffer the consequences of these prices and these consequences can sometimes be fatal. There are a number of underlying reasons why life-saving medications keep increasing in price.

In this article, factors such as competition in the pharmaceutical industry, branded drugs, and monopoly pricing will be examined to understand why drug prices just keep going up.

There is Not Enough Generic Drugs Competition

In today’s market, there are a large number of generic versions of well-marketed life-saving drugs available at much cheaper prices. However, patients are often not made aware of these more affordable generic drugs from either their doctor or from commercials and there are two main reasons for this.

First of all, generic versions do not cost enough for their manufacturers to afford the necessary budget for competitive advertising and marketing activities. The second reason is that many doctors prefer to prescribe drugs with brand names due either to greater familiarity or because the drug manufacturer has paid doctors to do so.

Whether physicians choose branded drugs over their generic versions due to the influences of the pharmaceutical industry or because they are more comfortable with the branded version, it is best that patients are made aware of all the available choices when purchasing the life-saving drugs which they need.

Drug Company Practices

According to a study published in Health Affairs on 28,000 drug codes in the U.S. between the year 2008 to 2006, most drug prices with brand names have inflated prices due to drug companies’ less than moral practices. Evidence of this is the fact that there are various drug companies that have been fined due to the outrageous rise in the price of their drugs. For instance, Teva Pharmaceutical USA, Inc. paid $135 million to the state of Illinois as a settlement following a lawsuit filed in 2005 regarding their fraudulent inflation of drug prices.

For patients who have been keeping up with the news, it is clear that the extra money from inflated drug prices is used for sales, marketing, and advertising, not in research or reducing the cost of manufacturing. Specifically, in a recent report, it was found that only one out of the 10 biggest pharmaceutical companies spend more on research and development than marketing.

Pharmaceutical Companies Use Monopoly Pricing

The price of life-saving drugs has been on the rise for decades in the U.S. and one of the simplest explanations for the sky-high drug prices is monopoly pricing. Drug companies with patent protections and an FDA exclusivity in marketing can set monopoly prices for drugs with brand names. From an economical point of view, companies will continue to raise prices until their profits start to decrease. Simply put, monopolies and monopoly pricing always result in unreasonable prices.

Furthermore, after drug patents expire and generic versions come onto the market, it is often the case that branding and marketing efforts from monopoly companies will make it harder for patients to find out about the generic versions. As mentioned above, this results in the generic drugs being completely overlooked as patients are told by commercials and their doctors that there is only one option available. Even though drug companies have costly research projects needed to develop new drugs, the balance between drug prices and budgets required for research and development is well off and almost all of the extra money is pure profit.

One Available Solution for Patients

As many patients, specifically in the U.S., have to pay expensive prices for vital life-saving drugs, many people are choosing online pharmacies to purchase prescription drugs for a more reasonable price. The experts from eDrugSearch.com explain that online pharmacies give people the option to compare prices of prescription medications from different manufacturers as well as compare price differences between international markets and domestic markets. Therefore, patients have more options available to choose from and can drastically reduce their monthly medication expenses. Also, cost and savings are not the only factors to consider when choosing an online pharmacy. It is important to ensure that the pharmacy is legitimate and licensed to sell medications.

Before choosing an online pharmacy, it is highly recommended that patients check that it is licensed and certified. Moreover, it is vital to make sure that the online pharmacy operates in a country with stringent pharmaceutical regulations. It is strongly advised that patients only buy drugs from online pharmacies that require doctors’ prescriptions to avoid buying fake and potentially dangerous medications.

High drug prices have become a major concern in today’s world. If political parties, pharmaceutical regulations, drug companies, and physicians are not putting in enough effort to make impactful changes, it is up to consumers to make changes in their purchasing habits. Instead of following brand name drugs from doctors’ prescriptions, patients must make sure to check for generic versions with the same equivalent and look at available options from online pharmacies.