sticker shock

[cellio]

Good heavens. I had not realized that list price for my allergy medicine is almost $3/day. (My co-pay, fortunately, is 50 cents/day.) C'mon, guys; develop generics! Besides, it would lower my co-pay a bit. :-)

Fortunately, I do not take allergy drugs year-round -- just for about 6 weeks in the summer, starting soon. I have mild allergy symptoms for longer, but I tend to develop immunities to allergy drugs after a while, and I'd rather not do that again.

Comments

Re: I'm sorry, but you are wrong.

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

Part of what has pushed the cost of drug development up in the last decade in the US has been the advent of direct-to-consumer marketing.

The most time-consuming part is the paperwork, but I guess if you define paperwork differently than I do, you might get a different answer. I can't tell you much about the actual numbers for any given drug...any way you slice it, it's not cheap.

Also, getting a generic to market is a lot less expensive than getting a novel compound to market, obviously.

costs

[cellio]

Part of what has pushed the cost of drug development up in the last decade in the US has been the advent of direct-to-consumer marketing.

Good point. I hadn't been paying attention to that, as I watch little TV and that's where (I gather) the ads are most prevelant. Well, that and my inbox, but I would be delighted if I would stop receiving spam for Viagra. :-)

My mind still boggles at the costs. In particular, it boggles at the notion that this is worth it for the drug companies -- that they make enough in those few years when they own the market to make up for hundreds of millions of dollars of R&D. Industries of that magnitude are just a bit outside my area of experience. :-) I'm sure drugs aren't the only area where it plays out like this; I'd imagine that things like aircraft are similar in scope. But still... wow.

Re: costs

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

You will never stop receiving spam for Viagra. You might as well ask for the moon on a silver platter. So is life.

The next industry where you see things like this is probably the auto industry, not the aircraft manufacturing industry. Airplane design is much more static than automobiles, and car sales are based more on advertising than actual differences between products. Granted, the cost to get a vehicle to market is less than the cost of getting a drug to market, but I'll bet that the advertising costs are not far off. Next, you should consider Hollywood and their costs and marketing. We could go on and on, but I'm sure everyone has the picture now.