> It might sound a lot, but its actually not. Yes, unfortunately I understand why the huge markup is a necessity to cover R&D costs. I am close to people who a

> It might sound a lot, but its actually not. Yes, unfortunately I understand why the huge markup is a necessity to cover R&D costs. I am close to people who are on these prohibitively expensive orphan drugs. What surprised me however was that when the patent for it expired, I thought prices would decrease as generics came in. Unfortunately as I learned more, it seems that biologics are so hard to produce unlike regular drugs, where Indian pharmaceutical companies can immediately come in with generics. Even though detailed information on the production process is available on the patent, it seems production variability/heterogeneity is still a major obstacle, and I was just curious where in the whole development process is this the most difficult to control for. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to respond with your insight!