Coca Cola is a luxury item. If they raise the price too much, no one will buy it, and that puts an upper limit to the price (and makes consolidation less profitable). And it still may happen if not for antitrust - I&#x27;m sure a combined RCPepsiCoca Cola company will be more profitable than three independent ones.<p>The only reason DataPrim price could be hiked was that the people who need it will actually pay for it. Same with ACTH. A captive audience is a wonderful thing -- something Coca Cola would love but doesn&#x27;t have.<p>There were ~100 car manufacturers 100 years ago, how many are there now? (And cars are not as essential as ACTH)<p>There were tens to hundreds of media companies up until the 1980&#x27;s. Now, there are essentially six[0]. And if antitrust didn&#x27;t matter, there would probably be less.<p>Similar things are happening in pharma[0].<p>It is one aspect of capitalism that&#x27;s to blame: &quot;free market&quot;. If you monopolies are legal (and in a totally free market, they are), then you will get monopolies because they are more effective at extracting rent than competition. we&#x27;ve just seen this happen twice in the pharma market.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Media_cross-ownership_in_the_U...</a><p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ft.com&#x2F;cms&#x2F;s&#x2F;0&#x2F;6aad8ebe-e9c0-11e4-b863-00144feab7de.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ft.com&#x2F;cms&#x2F;s&#x2F;0&#x2F;6aad8ebe-e9c0-11e4-b863-00144feab7...</a>