This is why the neoliberal fantasy of "let's just remove regulations and let the "free-market" work its magic" is naive at best: https://www.washingtonpost.com

This is why the neoliberal fantasy of "let's just remove regulations and let the "free-market" work its magic" is naive at best: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-humiras-price-keeps-rising-despite-fda-approval-of-generic-competition/2020/01/07/549ed0ce-2e3a-11ea-bcb3-ac6482c4a92f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-humiras-... "Humira’s price has defied gravity — and been ensconced as a frequent rhetorical target on Capitol Hill — through AbbVie’s aggressive use of patents and deals with generic manufacturers to forestall competition." "Humira was approved by the FDA in 2002 and its core patents expired in 2016, according to the Biosimilars Council, a division of the Association for Accessible Medicines, which represents generic manufacturers. But AbbVie won dozens of additional patents — what critics call a “patent thicket” — that extended the exclusive market for the drug to as late as 2034, the council said." I'm not saying that there isn't high costs involved in the approval process, what I'm saying is that it is disproportionate to the price difference. What actually makes a difference is government regulations on another level, mainly price controls, like in Europe. Just to make it clear, I'm very much in favour of generics, but the focus should be patents and price control, not small fish like REMS (from your link "consumers pay an extra $1.8 billion in out-of-pocket costs.", which furthermore is a number the authors have every interest to inflate) or removing burdensome, but appropriate, approval regulations, possibly threatening public safety.