The insulin racket: why a drug made free 100 years ago is recently expensive
This is an issue beyond insulin. I hope they don't just focus on insulin.Generics do not work to lower prices on drugs because there is price fixing between companies. Price fixing is illegal in the US but does not seem to be enforced.I discovered this because my sister in law has a rare disease and she depends on a rare drug called syprine. Her drug costs went from 177.00 a month to $8000.00 a month where it hovered there for a year, then it went up to $43,354.73 a month.The US funds the manufacture and research on drugs for rare diseases but only while the drug is under patent. Once the drug is out of patent then there is no regulation. These are called "orphan drugs."It turns out that Valeant (the maker of syprine) was guilty of price fixing and was under investigation by the federal trade commission. The case went all the way to the supreme court which came down against Valeant. The end result seems to be nothing.