The pharmaceutical industry would have us believe the cost driver is R&D and the money well spent. Aside from patent regreening and out of control marketing [0]

The pharmaceutical industry would have us believe the cost driver is R&D and the money well spent. Aside from patent regreening and out of control marketing [0] I think the change in pricing methodology from cost-plus to value-based [1] explains most all of the delta. [0] Advertising chemotherapeutic agents directly to the consumer ought to be disallowed as an expense under the tax code, IMO [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing Copyedited.