3 ms·

Probably both, they've got to make back the cost of developing and testing the therapy, but there's probably a profit markup on top of that.

• skissane 4y ago
  US-based pharmaceutical companies maximise their margins in the US to make up for smaller margins in other markets. In many other countries, most prescription drugs are purchased by the government, which gives the government a lot of bargaining power which it uses to drive margins down. Prescription drug purchasing is much more disjointed in the US (negotiating with many private insurers instead of just the government), giving more bargaining power to the vendors and supporting higher margins.
  • texasbigdata 4y ago
    This doesn’t make sense. Consider two scenarios: company ABC sells only in the USA and Company XYZ is otherwise identical but also sells to Asia. You are implying that because XYZ has lower profit as a percentage yet higher profit as a nominal dollar amount, that XYZ will charge its American patients more. My intuition says both ABC and XYZ will charge Americans the same, namely the highest amount it possibly can under market/regulatory/PR/competitive considerations.
    • throwtheacctawy 4y ago
      The same that happens in medicine happens in college textbooks - and other forms of high margin, but relatively fixed/finite initial investment and stable cost to produce. American scholars write some of the most respected textbooks in the world, they are then sold in US colleges for $100-400/each. The same book is then sold in SE Asia and Africa for $10-40/each.