Powerful Ideas for Global Access to Medicines

Abstract

One of the few issues uniting U.S. voters in the 2016 election was outrage over the high prices of medicines. From the quadrupling of EpiPen prices to $1,000-per-pill hepatitis C treatments, from six-digit pricing of cancer drugs to the 55-fold price increase on a 62-year-old toxoplasmosis drug, the scandals keep coming. In Europe, where government involvement in price negotiations means that new drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines (“medicines”) can cost less than half their U.S. prices, there is nevertheless serious concern that yearly price increases will break health system budgets. Worldwide drug spending grew by about 9% in 2014 and 2015, outpacing both overall health expenditures and economic growth.

Keywords: medicines, access